Bessie henDriCks lake CiTy

114 years — and counting Lake City farm wife is oldest Iowan, third oldest American

DARCY DOUGHERTY MAULSBY

editor@messengernews.net

LAKE CITY — Age may be just a number, but now that Bessie Hendricks has turned 114, her numbers definitely deliver the wow factor. Born Nov. 7, 1907, the longtime Lake City resident is the oldest living Iowan. She’s the third oldest living person in America, notes her family. She’s also the 14th oldest living person in the world, according to the Gerontology Research Group’s data from October 2021.

Hendricks, who lives at Shady Oaks Care Center in Lake City, spent some time celebrating last November with her children, including Glenda, Joan and Leon. The siblings also remembered their late brother Ron, as well as their sister Shirley Hunziker, who passed away in September 2021.

“Mom doesn’t really talk much anymore, but she was looking around and seemed to enjoy it when we were together,” said Glenda Hendricks, of Lake City.

When Hendricks turned 111, she said she was 18 when people asked how old she was.

Hendricks has always had a knack for not letting stress bother her, says her family. She has lived through the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, World War I, the Great Depression, World War II and now COVID-19. When she turned 110, she shared her best advice to live a long, healthy life: “Work hard.”

While Hendricks has achieved a milestone few people in the world ever reach, her beginnings were much the same as countless Iowans more than a century ago.

Hendricks was born on a farm in Carroll County a few miles southeast of Auburn on Nov. 7, 1907. She was welcomed by her parents, Hugh and Mattie (Clark) Sharkey, along with older siblings John, David, Laurence and Ethel. A younger sister, Anna, was born in 1910 after the family had moved in 1908 to a 160-acre farm two miles east and one mile north of Lake City in Calhoun County.

At age 5, Hendricks began attending first grade at the country school across the road from the family’s farm. When she wasn’t in school, she helped with chores at home.

“We kids were always getting into mischief when the folks were gone to town,” Hendricks recalled in her memoirs, which she wrote in 1998-1999 while in her early 90s.

One day Hendricks and her siblings decided to make taffy candy.

“Oh yes, it was good, but we couldn’t eat it all, so we had to get rid of it before the folks came home,” Hendricks recalled. “So guess what? We took the taffy to the barn and fed it to one of the horses by the name of Fox. We sure had a laugh, watching him wallowing his tongue around that candy, but he got rid of it.”

By the time Hendricks entered seventh grade, the local country school was closed due to lack of pupils, so Hendricks attended Central School in Lake City.

A more profound life change would occur, however, when Hendricks’ mother passed away from illness on July 2, 1921. Suddenly 13-year-old Hendricks had to assume many more household responsibilities.

She continued her education, however, and graduated from Lake City High School in May 1926. A little over 90 years later, she attended the all-school reunion in Lake City in the summer of 2016.

“She enjoyed it,” said Glenda Hendricks.

During her high school years, Hendricks completed a normal training course that allowed her to teach country school following her graduation. Starting in the fall of 1926, she taught country school in the Lake City area for four years.

Did she enjoy teaching school?

“Well, sure I did,” she said.

Just before she started her last year of teaching, Hendricks attended a dance in Lohrville one evening with a friend named Art Hendricks, who had an older brother named Paul. While she came to the dance with Art, she left with Paul, recalled her family.

After Paul and Bessie married on June 27, 1930, at the Woodlawn Christian Church in Lake City, the couple lived in the tiny Calhoun County town of Rands for nearly three years. Paul Hendricks worked at the grain elevator and train depot, in addition to running a small store. The couple’s daughters Shirley and Joan were born during this time.

In March 1933, the young family moved to a farm east of Lake City that would be the Hendricks’ home place for the next 47 years. The family expanded to include Roland (Ron), Glenda and Leon.

“We worked hard on the farm,” said Bessie Hendricks, whose husband raised crops, hay, cattle and hogs, while she grew a large garden, canned up to 800 quarts of vegetables and fruit a year and served as a 4-H leader.

After Paul and Bessie Hendricks retired and held their farm sale in 1979, they moved to a home in Lake City in July 1980. The couple were one month shy of celebrating their 65th anniversary when Paul passed away on May 25, 1995.

“He was a wonderful man,” Hendricks said.

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-Submitted photos

BESSIE HENDRICKS, who turned 114 on Nov. 7, 2021, celebrates her birthday at Shady Oaks Care Center in Lake City with her three living children, including, from left, Joan Schaffer, Leon Hendricks and Glenda Hendricks, all of Lake City.

BESSIE HENDRICKS, of Lake City, graduated from Lake City High School in 1926, taught country school and married in 1930.

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