You’re Never Too Old To Vote She Baby-Sat Strom Thurmond, And She’s Voting For Him Again

When Lois Crouch Addy first voted for president, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole hadn’t even been born.

The 104-year-old woman can remember shaking Woodrow Wilson’s hand at his presidential inauguration, voting in the first election after women’s suffrage and baby-sitting Strom Thurmond.

Now he’s the nation’s oldest senator ever at age 93, and she plans to vote Tuesday to give him another six-year term. Campaign ads for Thurmond’s 43-year-old Democratic opponent, Elliott Close, question whether the senator is still up to the job.

“It’s not your physical condition that counts, it’s the condition of your brain,” said Addy, who will go to the polls with her 19-year-old great-grandson next week.

The retired schoolteacher and principal, who says she’s gone to the polls for every national election since women were allowed to vote in 1920, was awarded South Carolina’s “Golden Voter” award Thursday in honor of her voting record. She gets around on her walker and volunteers at the local nursing home taking care of “old people,” she said with a laugh.

Addy definitely has developed her own perspective on the history of politics.

Franklin Roosevelt? “I hated him,” she says.

Prohibition? “The greatest thing that ever happened to America,” said the lifelong member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

Political parties? “I’ve never understood what’s the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. What’s the difference?” she asked.

So, with her unique perspective on American history, whom does she plan to vote for in Tuesday’s presidential election, Dole or Clinton? “The best man,” she said.

She also has had her brushes with history. In Saluda, where she has lived since 1898, her brother-in-law was John William Thurmond’s law partner. He often brought his young son, Strom.

“We entertained Strom with horseback riding,” she said. “And he was thrilled to death, of course, to ride horseback. He was a good child.”

She’s voted for Thurmond since he entered public office and says she’ll vote for him until he retires.

“I’ve always supported Strom Thurmond, and I still intend to,” she said. “It’s the brain that counts, not his physical condition. As long as you have a good, workable brain, you’re fit for office.”

Thurmond still visits her whenever he’s in town, she said.

More people would vote if they could remember what women went through to get that right, she said. During a 1913 college trip to Washington - travel, room and board for $25 a week, she said - she and her classmates, all wearing their blue school uniforms, were accosted in the street by boys who thought they were there to demonstrate for women’s rights.

“‘Suffragettes! Suffragettes!’ they shouted as we walked,” she said. “I’ve never been so frightened in my life. We were just there to see the town.”

But her college professor had a treat for them, she said. He talked President Wilson into meeting the girls from South Carolina.

“He gave us a reception in the White House the day of the inauguration,” she said, smiling. “And you never saw such fireworks and goings-on as it was that night. It was fantastic. That’s the highlight of my life.”