Woman, 110, was rare witness to history
For 110 years Bessie Higgins lived in Butler County and experienced the monumental changes that came to the United States.
She was alive before humans flew airplanes, before there was any great world war and before there were talking movies.
Higgins, who was Concordia Lutheran Ministries' oldest resident, died a week ago on July 7.
While several funeral homes said they have arranged funerals for people in their early 100s, they could not recall anyone who was 110 when they died.
She was born Bessie Brown on Dec. 23, 1902, in Concord Township, one of six children and grew up on a farm with no electricity.
The year she was born the Boer War ended, the teddy bear was introduced and Theodore Roosevelt was president.
In 1903, before her first birthday, the first silent movie, “The Great Train Robbery,” was released. That same year the Wright Brothers made their first airplane flight.
During her grade school years, the first electric washing machine was invented, Ernest Rutherford discovered the structure of an atom, parachutes were invented, the Titanic sank, Henry Ford created the moving assembly line, the Panama Canal opened and World War I began.
“She was a child during the rise of the gasoline engine, that would have been neat to see horses in the streets, then cars 20 years later,” said Brad Pflugh, a Knoch High School history teacher and a Butler County Historical Society Board member.
At 13 years old Higgins passed a county examination that made her eligible to attend high school. She started high school in 1916 with 15 other students.
During her time in school influenza struck the U.S.
“We went through a horrible time during the influenza epidemic in 1919,” Pflugh said. “There is a mass grave for that in South Butler.”
Higgins graduated high school with seven other students in 1920. That was also the year the 19th Amendment was passed giving women the right to vote and prohibition began.
She went on to attend Butler Business College and Slippery Rock Normal School, now Slippery Rock University.During these years, insulin was discovered and the first talking movie, “The Jazz Singer,” was released. She would have read first hand about Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean; that a new planet, Pluto, was discovered; the Empire State Building was built, and that Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.She taught until she married Frank Higgins in 1933, during the Great Depression. Because married women were not allowed to be teachers at the time, Higgins resigned her position to become a homemaker. Her husband, also a teacher, was paid $100 a month.During her time as a housewife, the Hoover Dam was completed, Earhart vanished in a flight over the Pacific Ocean, the Golden Gate Bridge opened, the movie “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was released as the first full-length animated cartoon, World War II began, and the Jeep was invented in Butler.She also lived during the time that the microwave was invented, the first organ transplant occurred, color television was introduced in 1951, and Princess Elizabeth became queen of England.In 1953, when her youngest child was 10, Higgins was offered a position teaching for the special education department in Butler County. While she was teaching, DNA was discovered, Disneyland opened, civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, Elvis gyrated on the “Ed Sullivan Show,” and the first televised presidential debates where shown.While horses were the means of travel when she was born, Higgins learned in 1961 that the Soviets launched the first man into space.She continued to teach until her retirement in 1967. During her retirement, she and her husband began traveling, spending their winters in Florida.In her early retirement years, the first heart transplant occurred, Neil Armstrong became the first man on the Moon, there was a three-day concert at Woodstock, N.Y., the Watergate scandal happened, Microsoft was founded, the first woman was appointed to the Supreme Court, and Michael Jackson released the album “Thriller.”After the death of her husband in 1985, Higgins began to travel again, taking trips to Hawaii and Canada. She was in Germany when the Berlin Wall, an icon of the Cold War, fell in 1989.Higgins had called Concordia her home since she moved there in the 1990s. She enjoyed playing bridge, which she said kept her mind active.Throughout her life, Higgins witnessed the world around her change at a rapid rate. She also saw 19 men become president, which is close to half of the 44 who have led this country.In a 2010 interview, Higgins attributed her long life to watching her health, living one day at a time and trusting in God.She spent 11 decades experiencing vast changes in her lifestyle and watching the world change with her, all from her home in Butler County.
