To 100 and beyond

Rarely is there a need for three numbers on a birthday cake, but for one local resident it was a requirement.

Wannita McKenna, or "Blondie" as her family likes to call her after the comic strip "Blondie and Dagwood," turned 102 last Wednesday while surrounded by family and friends at the Bridge at Bay in Port St. Joe.

Although celebrating a rather unlikely birthday, she says she still feels young…..but not that young.

"I feel no different. Not like 20, but maybe 50," McKenna joked.

A self-proclaimed small-time troublemaker with a good sense of humor, McKenna was born in 1908 in Atlanta, Georgia, but relocated to Alabama when she was young.

Through her teenage years, growing up in Alabama, she attended high school in Whistler, where she insisted her favorite subject was math, although other family members joked that it had to be boys.

"One time I told my mother I was going somewhere and instead I went across the Mobile Bay to go dancing with a boy," said McKenna. "I got caught, but it was fun."

She was an avid basketball player and played for a team in high school. That athletic ability still manifests itself, family members say, in her dedication to applying those skills to her newly-acquired wheelchair bowling techniques.

McKenna married her first husband, Hobart McEarehern, when she was 18 years old, the marriage lasting over 21 years. 

With the birth of her daughter Louise, also came a time in American history that provided for many hardships.

While many struggled through the Great Depression, McKenna and her family moved into a boarding house along with numerous other members of the family. With a large dining room, the boarding house paved the way for survival during these hard times.

Her family members were fortunate enough provide meals for other residents. The cost was 20 cents and while other family members prepared these huge meals, McKenna waited on the tables.

The experience must have given McKenna a needed boost because after the depression, McKenna worked for numerous years waiting tables in fine dining, up-scale restaurants in Atlanta and Mobile.

After her divorce, she met and married her second husband, John McKenna, who managed the Sanger Theatre in Mobile.

Following the death of her second husband in the early 1970s, McKenna moved to Apalachicola where she remained active into her late 90’s.

Her daughter, Louise Joyner, said that McKenna enjoyed gardening and teaching Sunday school at the Trinity Episcopal Church and even into her 80’s she could be found on the roof of her home sweeping off debris.

"We would drive up to the house and be like, we'll there's mother again on top of the roof," said Joyner. "We couldn't believe it."

At the rip age of 102, she has four generations of offspring, including her daughter, a grand-daughter, three great-grandchildren and three great-great grandchildren.

These days, McKenna resides at the Bridge at Bay in Port St. Joe and has left most of her rebellious ways for the younger generations, although she has been known to host a private card game or two with some of the other residents.

Although she has traded in her dancing shoes for some new hobbies like sewing and crochet, family members agree she still sows a mean quilt.