As Hattie Mae Harris sifts through 101 years of memories, she begins to sing.
“Farther along, we’ll know all about it; farther along, we’ll understand why.”
Her 65-year-old niece Delma Baker stands at the stove in the kitchen of the pair’s Tucson home that Harris helped to build more than 20 years ago. When Harris trails off, Baker continues the tune.
“My voice is clogging,” Harris, 101, says. “I ask God to bless my singing, and he lets me feel the anointing in my singing.”
As she approaches her 102nd birthday in May, Harris credits her longevity to her Lord. Eating right and staying active — habits she picked up during her childhood on a Crockett, Texas, farm — don’t hurt either.
Baker says that until turning 101, Harris had no significant need of a doctor and is not taking any prescription medications.
Harris still makes it to Calvary Evangelistic Center, 5160 S. Treat Ave., every Sunday, often contributing to the Bible study discussions as she has since she joined about 20 years ago. She’s not afraid to share her opinions.
“There are some people who are sweet, old ladies,” Baker says. “This one has a bite. If you want to cross her, you have got it coming. You will find out she has got a debater in her.”
And her voice is still her own.
“She’s talking to me,” Harris says, scolding when Baker starts to answer a question directed at Harris.
She still does much of her own cleaning, grocery shopping and banking. She can still call to mind the birthdays of her 10 brothers and sisters and many of their children.
Few of her contemporaries are left. Her sister — the baby of her family — is in her 80s and lives in Oakland, California. The 2010 census reported 832 centenarians, or people 100 or older, living in Arizona.
Harris remembers losing family to the flu pandemic that began in 1918, and she remembers World War II: “I remember when President Roosevelt said, ‘This war will affect every man, woman, boy and girl,’ ” she says. “I remember he announced that on the radio. We didn’t have no TV then.” There were rations on butter, meat and even shoes. She can still picture people running red lights and through the streets to celebrate when the war ended.
Her mind is sharp, and her faith is deep. She sees every step in her life as a step toward heaven — from an abusive marriage ending in divorce to a beauty shop to call her own in Detroit.
Those around her see it, too.
“She is an upright, moral woman of integrity,” says Maynard Weisbrod, the senior pastor at Calvary Evangelistic Center. “Her life is representative of a mother in the church.”
From a century’s worth of memories, here are three snapshots of life that Harris shared with the Star.
FAMILY LIFE
Between 1910 and 1932, Harris’ parents had 11 children.
She remembers the birth of one of her siblings when she was about 5.
“They didn’t tell kids at that time where babies came from, so anyway, we heard something holler. … It sounded like a great big bird, and my brother was the oldest and said, ‘Daddy, a hawk got a chicken!’ ”
When the children met their new brother, they were startled. “Where did he come from? My daddy said, ‘Out of the peanut patch,’ ” Harris says. “The peanut patch was close to the house. I worked myself so tired trying to find a baby. My brother and sister, all three of us were out there looking for a baby.”
Growing up, Harris often cared for her siblings.
“There was so much love in the family,” Harris says. “You loved your sisters and brothers, and you loved your teachers, and you loved your preacher, and you loved everybody.”
But there was also discipline.
“She would have won all the prizes in whipping,” Harris says of her mother.
ADULT LIFE
Instead of finishing her college teaching degree during the Great Depression, Harris went to beauty school later.
It was the cheaper option.
“Times was hard then,” she adds. “With a dime, you could buy milk, or a loaf of bread would be almost 10 cents. It would go a long ways.”
She eventually opened a beauty salon in the basement of her home in Detroit, where she lived for several decades.
Darlene Moten, Baker’s sister, remembers her aunt doing their hair when she would visit the family, which ultimately brought Harris to Southern Arizona in the 1970s. In her 70s, she helped to build the home she now lives in.
“Some women would tell me, ‘You sure would make some woman a good husband,’ ” she says and points to a kitchen window that she personally installed.
She still gardens and keeps up with the cleaning of her home as much as she can. She chose to stop driving at the age of 93.
She has never used a computer and has no interest in learning. Instead, she spends her time playing gospel music on the piano or reading her Bible, which she reads cover to cover each year.
SPIRITUAL LIFE
In all of it, Harris sees God.
Her parents taught her to pray as a child and took her to church.
“I learned the Bible, and I learned it real good,” she says.
Harris remembers setting up a makeshift church with buckets for her siblings to sit on while she preached. Even then, she says, “God was with me.”
Through the years of volunteering at church and hosting gatherings in her home, she learned more about the Christian faith of her childhood.
“As I grew older I picked up other understandings reading the scriptures and listening to the preacher,” she says. “The songs I would learn in church, they would ring in my soul.”
But her talent is speaking and sharing the message of the Bible.
She spent most of her 80s and early 90s speaking on her own evangelism program called “Open Truth” that she says aired weekly on Access Tucson.
On this faith she has built a healthy century of life. She can still walk but often uses a walker or wheelchair for convenience.
“She has no arthritis, no sugar diabetes, no cancer,” her niece says. “No nothing.”
But she has her God. And for Harris, that’s everything.
