It’s not every day you meet someone that has lived a century or that can remember the earliest beginnings of a town, but Wardell Gunn has and he can. Gunn turned 100 on January 11 and celebrated with family at his home.
He’ll have a bigger party for the public to celebrate with him in March. His daughter Betty said they didn’t want to do it in January because her dad does not like the cold and he agrees.
“No, I ain’t going out there in that cold. I don’t like cold weather,” Gunn said.
He said he doesn’t remember much and his hearing isn’t all that good.
“I used to run the saws and some people wear earplugs, some don’t. I didn’t and when you do it for so long, it messes with your hearing.” His memory comes and goes, he said, but what he can remember, he doesn’t mind sharing.
Gunn has lived in Montgomery County all of his life in the same area he resides now.
“I was born and raised in a log cabin by the creek,” Gunn said.
He’s held many jobs throughout his life and still works to this day.
“He works for the Hays Creek Water Association,” Betty said. “I make sure he doesn’t miss a meeting.” She said he’s been with the association for 17 years. Now, if you did the math then, yes, Gunn was well into his eighties when he began working for Hays Creek.
Betty said her dad has worked as a plumber, an electrician, a logger, worked for a gas company and has held many other jobs throughout his lifetime. Sometimes, she said he’s held two jobs.
Gunn remembers marrying his wife, Willie Mae. He said the two didn’t get married in a church, but in a fork in the road.
The couple has 10 children.
“My brothers and sisters and I -- we suffered for nothing,” she said. “My mom worked too. She was a laborer, and they made sure we had everything we needed.”
At the top of his many jobs, Gunn was a farmer who loved to hunt and fish.
“Anything they wanted, they grew it,” Betty said.
“It was better to eat back then than it is now,” Gunn said. “Now you don’t know what you’re eating.”
He remembered when people went to downtown Kilmichael and ground their own meal.
“It wasn’t what it is now,” he said, referring to Kilmichael. “There were a few stores, but they began to build brick stores and make it bigger. There were white people who owned businesses, there were some black people who held businesses down there too. But, theirs didn’t last as long.”
Gunn has been through a lot and has seen a lot in 100 years. His daughter said for the last nine years, her dad has battled prostate cancer, but it didn’t slow him down a bit.
“I’m just blessed to still be here,” Gunn said.
He’s also seen quite a few tornadoes in his years, a recent tornado sent a tree through their home.
“We went in the back and the house was shaking and carrying on and that big tree out there came through the house and didn’t even bust those windows,” he said.
But, like Gunn, his house is built on a firm foundation. He’ll tell you he’s a blessed man. Gunn is a member of Shady Grove United Methodist Church. Before moving his membership to Shady Grove, he was a member of Mount Zion United Methodist Church. The two churches aren’t far from each other, and he remembers the location of both the old Shady Grove and the new.
“It’s so far out in the woods now, you can’t hardly see it,” he said.
As a present for his 100th birthday, his daughter worked with Supervisor Willie Earl Townsend, Jr. on changing the name of the section of Mayfield Road they live on to Wardell Gunn Road.
“He was very helpful,” she said of Townsend.
She said she wanted to get the sign done before her dad’s birthday.
“I told him what I wanted and I worked with different people and by the grace of God, I got the sign done in December.”
And, they now live on Wardell Gunn Road.
“That sign down there got my name on it,” Gunn said.
When asked what his secret to a successful life is, he said he tells what he wants and keeps the rest to himself.
“And that’s my secret,” he said. “People come up to me and say, ‘What’cha heard Wardell?’ I tell them I haven’t heard anything. I ask them, ‘What have you heard?’ They’ll tell me, ‘I ain’t heard nothing, I been in the house.’ Well, that’s where I been, too. What they think I been doing? Going around trying hear stuff? You tell what you want people to know and you leave it at that. Especially in this day and age, you can’t tell everything you know. Sometimes it’s hard to remember stuff, but what I can remember, I keep it to myself.”
