FARMINGTON -- Dewey Keeter of Farmington looks forward to a hot meal each day from the Meals on Wheels program.
Keeter, 98, is in a wheelchair but is still able to do some things for herself. However, she is not able to prepare hot meals without assistance.
Meals on Wheels has helped her to stay in her own home, Keeter said.
Keeter moved from the Westville, Okla., area about 16 years ago to be closer to family. Her extended family includes four living children (one son has passed away), 15 grandchildren, 25 great-grandchildren and 25 great-great-grandchildren.
One daughter, Kathy Janes, lives across the dirt road from her and another, Nancy Lindabury, is in West Fork.
Janes said the Meals on Wheels program is reassuring because she knows her mother has a hot meal each day during the week and frozen meals to prepare on the weekends.
"I think it's the most awesome thing for people who are elderly and want to live in their homes," Janes said. "If I'm not here, I know she'll get a balanced meal."
Keeter said she lives as she wants by being in her own home.
"I'd rather stay in my own home," Keeter said. "I get up when I want to and I do what I want to do.
She watches the TV shows she wants to watch. One favorite is RFD-TV, a channel that features programming on rural issues and interests.
Keeter enjoys looking at birds outside her front window and watching chickens and ducks that are nearby. She has a motorized wheelchair and uses it in the front yard to water plants and flowers during warmer days. Her pet cat, Jet, enjoys a favorite spot in Keeter's lap.
"There's a lot you can see," Keeter said, adding she does not get bored and she believes, "You just make the best out of everything you can."
As Keeter nears her 100th birthday in a little over a year, she looks back on a lot of changes over her lifetime.
She grew up on a farm and stayed home with her children.
"I farmed, took care of horses and mules. I milked cows and slopped hogs," she said. "We butchered our own meat, rendered our own lard and cooked on a wood fire for a long time."
Her first husband and father of their children worked on the railroad from Muskogee to Fayetteville. When he passed away, Keeter started working for Stilwell Foods. She remarried 20 years later. Her second husband has passed away.
Keeter grew up during a time without motor vehicles, electricity, radios or TVs.
"When I started school, I had never seen a car," she said. The first vehicle she saw was an old, working truck.
She remembers when her family first had electricity and the first TV she saw was a black and white one that belonged to a neighbor.
Another memory is being paid to weed strawberry patches. She made 7 1/2 cents an hour to pull weeds.
Keeter sewed all the clothes for her four daughters, many made out of feed sacks.
Lindabury said the girls would eagerly wait for their daddy to come home with feed sacks that he bought for 10 cents a piece.
"We couldn't wait for daddy to get home to see what kind of dress we would have," Lindabury said.
Keeter canned, loved to cook and prepared three meals a day for her family, each meal with homemade bread.
"I didn't know how to buy groceries until I quit gardening," she said.
Tina Batlle, director of Farmington Senior Activity and Wellness Center, said Keeter is typical of many of the homebound senior adults served by Meals on Wheels.
"She is the perfect example of why Meals on Wheels is important," Batlle said. "It helps seniors to stay in their own homes where they want to be. When seniors can remain at home and be safe at home in familiar surroundings, that is a good thing,"
The program provides a hot lunch for those who can no longer prepare their own hot meals, Batlle said, and helps family members know that their loved ones are getting a nutritious meal every day.
For more information on Meals on Wheels, contact any of the senior centers in this area: Farmington, 267-5709; Prairie Grove, 846-2794; Lincoln, 824-3861.
General News on 02/01/2017