Betty Everidge, a longtime member of the Plant City community, died Friday, Jan. 2, just a month before she would have turned 110.
Mrs. Everidge was born in Carrolton, Georgia, in 1905. When she was 12, boll weevils destroyed her family’s cotton farm, so they took a train to Florida and became permanent residents.
In her youth, Mrs. Everidge took piano lessons from a blind teacher, enjoyed looking for fireflies and shooting stars at night, and attended many all-day church social events. She was popular with the young men of Plant City, and though she had always answered to “Lizzie,” one suitor called her “Betty,” and the name stuck.
But there was one man in particular who captured her heart: She married Irving Everidge when she was about 18 years old.
“There were others after him, but I put in to get him, and I did,” Mrs. Everidge once said about her husband, who died in 1945.
Mrs. Everidge lived on her own until she was 103 and then moved to a nursing home. She had said the secret to living a long life was to care for one’s personal health and to keep working. She herself worked until she was 79.
About 50 of Mrs. Everidge’s family members and friends gathered at Oaklawn Cemetery Tuesday, Jan. 6, for a graveside service. One of her granddaughters, Jean Ann Taylor, spoke about how Mrs. Everidge had impacted her family and the community during her life.
“Granny was more than just a grandmother to me,” Taylor said. “She was my dearest friend. We laughed all the time. We were silly.”
Mrs. Everidge also was well-known for her cooking.
“She loved to cook, and she did the Southern, fried cooking,” Cecil Everidge, one of Mrs. Everidge’s three sons, said. “That’s the reason she lived so long.”
For years, almost every Sunday, Mrs. Everidge hosted large family gatherings from which no one left hungry.
“Her family really was her love,” Cecil said. “That’s what she lived for.”
Sunday was not the only day Mrs. Everidge welcomed people into her home, where she lived for 70 years.
“On just about any day of the week, there might have been three or four cars parked in her dirt driveway,” Taylor said.
Tommy Wornock, a minister at First Baptist Church, presided over the graveside service. He said Mrs. Everidge was the church’s oldest member, and a woman of true faith, as he pointed out the well-worn Bible atop her casket.
“We will not be laying to rest Mrs. Everidge, but simply the Earth suit that God gave her to use,” Wornock said. “Mrs. Betty Everidge is with our Lord right now. … We at First Baptist Church are thankful for that pattern and example.”
How Far We’ve Come
When Betty Everidge was born in 1905, the average life expectancy was 47 years. Only 8% of U.S. homes had telephones, and only 14% had bathtubs. Safety razors and airplanes were new inventions, and women were most likely to be teachers or governesses, if they worked at all.
Contact Catherine Sinclair at csinclair@plantcityobserver.com.
