The best change in 100 years

Elsie Canady of Gray’s Creek in Cumberland County marked her 100th birthday July 31. She was honored with a feature article in the Fayetteville Observer and recognition by Hope Mills mayor Eddie Dees.

Elsie Nordan was born in 1911 in the Cumberland community. She grew up near the No. 3 cotton mill, also known as the old Bluff Mill, where her father, Frank Nordan, operated the generator. She graduated from Hope Mills School in 1930. She met and later married Ernest Richard Canady, a farmer in Gray’s Creek. They had seven children.

Ms. Canady told the Observer’s Lisa Carter Waring that of all the changes she has seen over the past 100 years, the most significant was electricity introduced by South River EMC. “We didn’t have electricity in the country until 1942,” she said. “That was a big, big help to farmers.”

Ms. Canady said electricity brought running water, bathrooms, vacuum cleaners, lights and electric stoves. She remembers getting her first electric stove. “My husband said he hoped it would make as good of a biscuit as the wood stove,” she said. “And I think it did.”