Next week, Connie Mayfield's sister Belva Banta will turn 100 years old. Being nearly 106 herself, Mayfield has some advice for Banta on her big day.

"Just hang in there. Don't give up," she said, smiling. "She can make it a few more years yet."

Connie and Belva visited with their sisters Mary Hansen and Hazel Hutson at Woodland Hills Nursing Home, joking about how some people used to -- and others still do -- call them "the prettiest girls in Marble Hill."

"People used to say, 'Those Bollingers, they'll live forever,'" Mary said, since their parents Millie and John Bollinger were both fairly active into their later years. But neither of them lived quite so long as Connie and Belva. Naturally, the sisters are full of stories from a different time.

Connie said one of her earliest memories was going as a girl to see the talk of the town: a new Ford automobile. But some of her fondest memories, she said, came at the head of her classroom. She became a schoolteacher when she was still a teen herself, and taught in country schools in Illinois for more than 45 years.

Connie Mayfield, 105, left, and her sister Belva Banta, 99, pose for a portrait Wednesday at Woodland Hills StoneBridge Senior Living Community in Marble Hill, Missouri. Banta will celebrate her 100th birthday on Feb. 5.Laura Simon

"I was the oldest daughter," Connie said. "So I was used to always taking care of the kids."

Of course, schools were different when she was teaching. Her morning commute was usually on foot and usually entailed fence-hopping. Then there was the 6-year-old boy who didn't come to school because she refused to grant him smoke breaks during class time.

"I said, 'Oh, he can't smoke and come to school,'" she recalled. "'That's against the law.'"

"It was wonderful," she said of her teaching career. "I only hate for [the students] to get old so fast."

Her husband, Truman Mayfield, was a teacher in a country school as well. They met at the Bollinger County Fair, she said, and loved to travel, even making it as far as Alaska once. They also liked to dance.

"Every Saturday night," Connie said. "That would be our outlet for the week. ... They weren't wild, though. They were tame dances. Things are way different than they used to be."

Belva worked as a hairdresser and can still recall what it was like to grow up in a crowded house. Eleven of the family's 12 children survived infancy, she explained, and that many kids could sometimes get hectic.

Other times, a crowded house meant good music, as their parents hosted neighbors to sit in and play. Their mother played the upright bass, their father the fiddle.

"I don't understand how they did it. Never had a lesson of music," Belva said. "I guess we take after both of them. I like music. I'd be happy to go through it all again."

"We were poor," she said.

"Everyone was poor," Connie said.

"But we were happier, I think, than the others were," Belva said.

Connie said the most important thing to keep in mind as you get older is a good attitude. Good books don't hurt either.

"If you can see, I'd say read," she said.

She's lost her eyesight, but that hasn't stopped her from consuming her history books and Bible stories on tape.

"Now, I listen," she said. "Sometimes all night."

"Don't be grouchy. Be cheerful. Some people give up and all they think about is their problems. Don't feel sorry for yourself. I've been so fortunate," she said. "It wouldn't do to say bad things. I've really enjoyed my life. Be a good Christian. Do the best you can and love God."

tgraef@semissourian.com

(573)388-3627