It was a cloudy day in January as we drove to Lake City, my hometown, for yet another funeral—this time for Joan Rountree, a friend of my late mother. At 93, Joan was the last of Mama’s close friends to pass. A chapter had closed, one I wasn’t quite ready to finish reading. 

At the service, I scanned the pews filled with familiar faces—older now, more fragile than I remembered. We stood, we sat, we sang. I searched for ghosts in the crowd, glimpses of who we used to be. And I thought about Mama.

After, I stood with a paper plate of pound cake in the fellowship hall, mourning not just Joan, but the end of a generation. The linoleum under my feet, the smell of Maxwell House in the air—it all felt so familiar, and yet foreign. 

I turned to Betsy, a lifelong family friend, and said how sad it was to have lost the last of Mama and Daddy’s circle.

“Helena’s still alive,” she said. 

 I paused. “Helena?” 

“Yes,” she nodded. “She’s 108.”

My brain stopped right there. Helena Powers. I hadn’t thought of her in years. I assumed she’d passed sometime after her hundredth birthday—the one Mama and my sister Deborah attended in 2016, just around a year before Mama passed herself. Deborah had called me after that party: “Helena drank three bourbons. After the third one, she stood up and said, ‘That’s my limit.’ And the party was over.”

Was that the secret to a long life? Bourbon? If so, I might be out of luck; I never acquired the taste. But the idea of Helena still being here—still breathing, still lucid—thrilled me. I wasn’t in Lake City just for another goodbye. Maybe I had one more hello—one more connection to Mama. Someone who remembered her—possibly even better than I did. Someone who didn’t just see the past but still carried it.

For the first time that day, I felt something more than grief. I felt curious. Hopeful. I needed to find Helena Powers. And if she was still talking, I was going to listen.

She buried everyone she danced with, outlived the people who built her world.
—Prissy Elrod

The next night, mid-bubble bath, I remembered Betsy. I dried one hand, bubbles clinging to the other, and texted: “Do you have Frankie’s number?”

Two minutes later, I had a lead on connecting with Helena’s son, Frank to most, Frankie to me. Oh, the perks of small-town life—and lifelong friendships. But Helena had just turned 109 and was in the emergency room—I worried I might be two days too late.

Skincare and Sentiments

A week later, my husband and I were headed back to Lake City—my fifth scheduled visit. The other four had been canceled for what Frankie called “understood reasons.” 

“It’s just not a good day for her,” he’d say.

Frankie, now 84, had his own health issues. And yet he’d moved back in with his mother to care for her. He slept in the bedroom he grew up in, inside the same green cottage-style house she’d lived in since 1938. Eighty-seven years in the same home. A whole history lived within those walls.

As we neared Lake City, I braced for another cancellation. But this time, Frankie met us in the driveway, pointing to where we should park. Their house, once tucked in a sleepy neighborhood, now stood along a busy road. But it was still one of my favorites in town: solid, green, familiar. We lingered outside, dodging the yard cats that circled my feet. Nostalgia followed me in.

Helena sat in the Florida room, bathed in the soft light coming through jalousie windows. The room was warm, like memory itself. When I saw her, I blinked. Then blinked again.

“Hi! Wow. Look at you!” I said, breathless.

She looked 85 years old. Her face was smooth, her makeup perfect and thick white hair styled beautifully. But it was her eyes that got me. Still blue, still sparkling. 

“I’m so glad to see you, Prissy,” she said, squeezing my hand. I had a mental list of deep questions. But the first one that flew out of my mouth? “Okay, what is your skincare routine?”

She laughed. Her afternoon caregiver, Liza, fetched three products: Ponds Cold Cream Cleanser, Clinique Smart Clinical Repair Wrinkle Correcting Cream and Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion. That was it. 

We sipped our Cokes and chatted. Her voice, soft but clear, flowed with stories. Every answer came wrapped in a memory. She was born in Apalachicola, one of six children. Her father harvested oysters from the bay for their dinner. “We’d slurp them fresh in the backyard and eat Mama’s vegetables grown in the garden,” she said, eyes dreamy.

After high school, she moved to Jacksonville for beauty school. One weekend, while visiting her Aunt Lucille in Lake City, they stopped for gas at a filling station. A young man named Ralph Powers pumped it. “My aunt introduced the two of us, since she knew him.” 

“He asked me for a date,” she said. “I gave him a date. We married six months later. I was 20. He was 23.” 

When I asked what the one thing that changed her life was, she didn’t hesitate: “Marrying Ralph.”

All the progress, all the change—and still, her anchor was love.
—Prissy Elrod

Helena told me that he became the youngest Cadillac dealer in the country and a self-made millionaire—truly a rags-to-riches story. He went on to campaign for Farris Bryant, who later appointed him District 2 delegate for the Florida Road Board. 

“That led to our meeting so many people,” she said. “We went with other Florida delegates to many places, even took the train to Washington for JFK’s inauguration. January 20, 1961. Coldest I’ve ever been. They made paper hats with holes for our heads, and we brought blankets down from the hotel room and wrapped ourselves in them. We still froze. But that night, we attended the inaugural ball, where Ralph and I danced beside Jackie and the President. They were such a beautiful couple.”

When I asked if she followed a diet or exercise routine, she grinned and sat up. Then she showed me—20 leg lifts, some arm stretches, a few “arm hugs” and her walker laps around the house. “So, what are your secrets to a long life?”  I asked. 

“Stay active, eat right and live right.”

Then she shared a story I’d never heard. “When your mother was pregnant with her third, she came to our dealership with you and your sister. Wanted herself a Cadillac. Your daddy said if she gave him a boy, he’d buy her one. But then she had another girl, so he canceled the order.” She laughed out loud.

 And I laughed so hard my Coke nearly came out of my nose. I couldn’t wait to get back to Tallahassee and tell Gina that Daddy didn’t ever want her. Sisters!  

The Secret to Living a Long Life

Helena was born into a world lit by lanterns and warmed by coal. An outhouse sat out back, and clothes were scrubbed on washboards. The first time she saw a light bulb, she thought it was magic. Her first car ride was in a 1914 Cadillac. The same Ralph, who’d later become her husband, picked her up in that very car. 

She watched letters become texts. Neighbors disappear behind garage doors. She remembers a nickel loaf of bread and radios that brought the world into living rooms—if you had one. Her life spanned World Wars, moon landings, big band music, smartphones and drones. She raised her son when some women needed a man’s signature to open a bank account. She has lived to see women fly jets and run corporations. Her mother couldn’t even vote. Her granddaughters can run for President. 

She buried everyone she danced with, outlived the people who built her world, and still—she wakes up to sunlight and birds singing. 

I wandered through her house, taking in the many photos on the walls—faces from long ago and not so long ago. Generations of Helena’s family, reaching back to the 1800s. Her Ralph. Her Frankie. Her younger self. Grandchildren and great-grandchildren. You could feel the love in every frame.

I asked about the best day of her life. She didn’t hesitate, “The day Frankie was born.”

Her happiest memory? “The day I married Ralph.” 

Her greatest regret? “Putting Ralph in a nursing home, where he died.” Tears pooled in her eyes. 

“I worry so much about my Frankie’s health,” she whispered. A heartfelt reminder that a mother’s worry never sleeps. Even when she’s 109, and her son is nearly 85. 

All the progress, all the change—and still, her anchor was love.

“And now these three remain,” Bible scripture says, “faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Maybe that’s the real secret—not skincare, or oysters or even bourbon. But love. Love that lasts. Love that remembers. Love that carries us through all of it. 

What a relief. I don’t have to like bourbon! 

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For more of Prissy’s Sunshine State stories, click here.

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