At nearly 103, Edith Cunningham remembers the days when there was no electricity, the family would be snowed in for days, and she rode to school in a horse-drawn sleigh in winter.

“My mother drove me 1½ miles to school but when the snow came, we had to put the car up and get the horse and sleigh,” she said. “One day my mother took me and my brother for a ride and the horse toppled the sleigh on a corner, and out we went. That little horse, he just stopped. He knew there was a problem. We pushed the sleigh up and continued our ride.”

I met Cunningham on Thursday at her Oakland home, a three-story house built in the late 1800s where she spends most of her days in a recliner now, reading the newspaper, doing crossword puzzles and spending time with her family and caregivers.

She remembers every little detail of her long life, which she attributes to having eaten fresh vegetables from the garden, worked hard, stayed active and had medical checkups every year.

“I never smoked and never drank — never, thank God. My mother would have killed me. I just had perfect health, that’s all.”

A lifelong Oakland resident, born at home in 1922, she also has a sense of humor which filters through as she laughs heartily when remembering her childhood.

“We went sliding. We made our own skis. We didn’t have money enough to buy skis. We used rubber to keep our feet on them and we would skate right along. We had a cow and a horse and a pig and a pen full of chickens and a goat. We had a vegetable garden and my mother canned everything.”

At age 6, she played the family’s pump organ, but her legs were too short to reach the pedals, so her mother got down on the floor and pumped them for her.

Her family had a woodstove and a battery-powered radio.

“We’d be snowed in for two or three days. We had to keep supplies. We had bad storms. We had to wash the oil lanterns every day. Mama’d have all the lamps lined up on the table. She’d wash the glass chimneys after she did the dishes.”

Her mother worked for a time in a corn and bean canning factory. Her father, who was employed by the railroad, died when she was a young girl.

Edith’s maiden name is Sturtevant, a family that, before the Revolutionary War, developed 10 lots of land in Oakland, for which Ten Lots Road is named. She graduated from Williams High School in 1939 and attended a year each at Coburn Classical Institute and Colby College, both in Waterville. She then enrolled in Bliss Business College in Lewiston, where she and fellow students were required to practice drills during World War II.

“We had to pull all the curtains at night. The housemother had us doing different things. My position was with a hose in the bathroom. If a bomb fell, I was to douse it.”

A 75-plus-year member of the Cascade Grange, she worked as a secretary at local businesses and in 1943, married Theodore Kerr whose parents owned a dairy farm. Her father-in-law delivered milk, cream and butter to people’s homes. Edith and Theodore had married on Easter at the United Baptist Church where she was a lifelong member.

“We took Easter Sunday because it was all decorated in lilies, and all the guests were (customers) from the milk route.”

Cunningham later divorced and in 1960, married Alfred Cunningham, who worked for the railroad and served in World War II. She worked as secretary to several school superintendents for 32 years, and loved the children.

“They used to come and stay with me when they were waiting for the bus. I remember there were twin girls, who were very poor. I think they were in the second grade and they had long, old coats. They came in one night and one of them stood in front of my desk and stamped her little foot and said, ‘Do you know what that S.O.B. gave me on my rank (report) card?’ They were so cute.”

Cunningham has two children, two grandsons, five great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren. Her caretaker, Joe Luczkowski, 60, who was at her house Thursday, said working with her is the best job he’s ever had.

“She’s a very easy lady to love,” he said.

Her daughter and son-in-law, Bonnie and Archie Sears, cited Cunningham’s strong work ethic and said she spent time going to camp with her friends when they were in their 80s. Asked what she thinks family will do for her 103rd birthday on July 26, Cunningham dismissed the idea, saying they had a big celebration on her 100th.

“Oh, nothing,” she said. “That’s just another day now.”

Amy Calder has been a Morning Sentinel reporter 37 years. Her columns appear here Sundays. She is the author of the book, “Comfort is an Old Barn,” a collection of her curated columns, published in 2023 by Islandport Press. She may be reached at [email protected]. For previous Reporting Aside columns, go to centralmaine.com