Linden's Mayor Derek Armsted spent a portion of Saturday celebrating the birthday of a 105-year-old city woman.
The mayor spent the day with Ollie Bell (Swain) Edwards on her 105th birthday celebration that was held at the Delaire Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Linden according to officials.
According to family members, Ollie Edwards will be 105 on December 8, 2016. She is the second child and first daughter of ten children born to the late George and Laura (Griffin) Swain in Crawfordville, Georgia. She loves telling stories and reliving her life about her growing up in Crawfordville.
Edwards lived on a big farm where they raised chickens, cows, and pigs, and they cleaned, cooked and ate what the men folk hunted (things like raccoons, possums, rabbits, and squirrels) in addition to growing their own vegetables family members said.
After having about nine children, Ollie moved to Roselle, for the first time in 1938.
She returned to Georgia for a brief period then made Newark, N.J. her permanent home in 1947 and lived there for over seventy years.
Edwards and most of her siblings left Georgia for a better way of life when she and a sibling moved to Newark family members said.
She has 3 surviving children, 15 surviving grandchildren, over 37 great grandchildren, too many great great grands and nieces and nephews to count living throughout the United States.