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It isn’t often you get to meet someone living in your backyard who has also lived through both World Wars.
Fern Hadley, who celebrated her 101st birthday Dec. 28, is also the oldest resident at Regal Healthcare Center in Hockessin.
Hadley was born in 1910 in Lomax, N.C., the oldest of 10 children. She moved to Newark, Del. at the beginning of World War II with her first husband. She and her husband opened the Hadley Plumbing business in Newark.
One of Hadley’s proudest accomplishments is her instrumental role in getting the Calvary Baptist Church started in Newark on Delaware Avenue.
When she wasn’t spending time at church, Hadley was working for the DuPont Company in the cafeteria. Hadley was known for her cooking and her baking, especially her cakes and her pies.
Hadley was also very crafty outside of the kitchen. She always enjoyed making homemade crafts for the holidays.
Hadley has been living at the Regal Healthcare Center for just two years and is very popular with the residents and the nurses. Although the always participates in the daily activities at the Center, she claims she did not have time for hobbies when she was younger.
“I did not have much time for pleasure. I was always busy working,” she recalled.
Now as a woman of leisure, Hadley enjoys listening to opera, which often brings her to tears. Her favorite drink is a cup of hot tea with a touch of whiskey.
Hadley said her biggest regret in life was not obtaining a better education, but she said she is most proud of her two children, Douglas Carroll and Charles Robert. Her son Douglas, who passed away in 2004, founded the Schilling Douglas School of Hair Design in Newark.
Despite having lived through two world wars and almost all of the twentieth century, Hadley’s supreme memory in all her life is still her family.
“My greatest memory is my first born child,” she said with tears in her eyes.
It isn’t often you get to meet someone living in your backyard who has also lived through both World Wars.
Fern Hadley, who celebrated her 101st birthday Dec. 28, is also the oldest resident at Regal Healthcare Center in Hockessin.
Hadley was born in 1910 in Lomax, N.C., the oldest of 10 children. She moved to Newark, Del. at the beginning of World War II with her first husband. She and her husband opened the Hadley Plumbing business in Newark.
One of Hadley’s proudest accomplishments is her instrumental role in getting the Calvary Baptist Church started in Newark on Delaware Avenue.
When she wasn’t spending time at church, Hadley was working for the DuPont Company in the cafeteria. Hadley was known for her cooking and her baking, especially her cakes and her pies.
Hadley was also very crafty outside of the kitchen. She always enjoyed making homemade crafts for the holidays.
Hadley has been living at the Regal Healthcare Center for just two years and is very popular with the residents and the nurses. Although the always participates in the daily activities at the Center, she claims she did not have time for hobbies when she was younger.
“I did not have much time for pleasure. I was always busy working,” she recalled.
Now as a woman of leisure, Hadley enjoys listening to opera, which often brings her to tears. Her favorite drink is a cup of hot tea with a touch of whiskey.
Hadley said her biggest regret in life was not obtaining a better education, but she said she is most proud of her two children, Douglas Carroll and Charles Robert. Her son Douglas, who passed away in 2004, founded the Schilling Douglas School of Hair Design in Newark.
Despite having lived through two world wars and almost all of the twentieth century, Hadley’s supreme memory in all her life is still her family.
“My greatest memory is my first born child,” she said with tears in her eyes.
