Life at 103, McDowell woman is ASU's oldest alumna.

Lula Craig is 103 years old – "almost 103 ½," she said.
The Nebo resident has the distinction of being the oldest known living alumna of Appalachian State University, class of 1924.
She learned to ride a horse from a man who had his pinky shot off while riding the most legendary horse in America. She taught hundreds of children school at Nebo (and quite a few in Dysartsville) in McDowell County, N.C., farmed, taught Sunday school, bore six babies and watched her house burn to the ground as she stood in the cold night alone.
She had a brother who fought in World War I and another who served in World War II. Some of her brothers, she said, worked on the construction of Lake James.
In March, Craig was visited by the chancellor of Appalachian State University, Kenneth Peacock. He brought a great many gifts for her, including a beautiful bouquet of flowers in the school's black and gold colors, a jacket with the school's "A" medallion on the collar, a blanket bearing the school's logo and more.
For her part, Craig gave him a photograph of her Bible studies class made during the time of her studies in Boone. Her family was on hand for the reception, and donated an undisclosed amount to the school's Appalachian Access scholarship program, according to Betty Ballew-Levy, Craig's granddaughter.
"I was born in upper Burke County," Lula Craig said, "on Paddy's Creek. I went to school at Shortoff Mountain, in the rock building that's up by Oak Grove Baptist Church." Her parents were Millard and Harriet Browning.
Her grandfather, she said, was D.E. Browning, who served in uniform for North Carolina during the Civil War. At some point in his service, he had told her, his was the responsibility of caring for Gen. Robert E. Lee's horse, Traveller.
Traveller was well known for his breeding and was as easily recognizable as Lee himself. One day, Browning told his granddaughter, he was riding the horse when a sniper took a shot at him, possibly mistaking him for Lee. The shot took his pinkie finger off, a lifelong reminder of his service to the Army of Northern Virginia.
Her family members were farmers and the work, she said, was hard and non-stop. She wanted to go to Boone to become a teacher, but her high school did not offer geometry, a required prerequisite for college.
Thus the county paid her expenses to go to Glen Alpine for her last three months of high school. There she studied all day with one teacher, concentrating on geometry. She lived in a dorm with six other girls.
"My roommate was Eva Bumgarner," she remembered. "Thirty-six of us graduated from there. I got a real sheepskin diploma."
She laughed easily, often and loudly during The McDowell News' visit to her home. It was easy to see that she treasured the memories, both happy and sad, that made up the story of her more than a century on this earth.
Appalachian was founded in 1899 as Watauga Academy and soon became a hub for training school teachers. In those days, teaching in N.C. public school required a two-year degree.
She was excited to go to Boone. "Boone was really coming up in those days. I lived in White Hall."
She worked all the two years she spent in Boone at a hosiery mill, she explained, to pay her way through school.
"It was $48 a quarter back then," she said.
"I saw my first football game there," she continued. "I wanted to go and none of the girls would go with me. They all said 'We don't want to go see a bunch of boys kill each other,' but I wanted to see it so I went by myself."
As it turned out, that was her last football game. What she saw was awful.
"I didn't like football after that day. A very nice, big boy got his leg broken right at the knee," she remembered. "I remember he was still in the hospital three months later. One day, all the other girls had all gone home for the weekend, I was so lonely. I said 'well, I'll go over and see that boy in the hospital.'"
She was glad she did, she said, because he had been lying there for months, slow to recover from his injury. After the visit, she returned home and decided never to go to another football game. Despite Appalachian's stunning recent victories, her decision stands. She has no interest in supporting that sport.
Returning home to Paddy's Creek, she met R.F. Patton, Burke County School's superintendent, in the street. He offered her a job right away at Mull School, which had about 50 students. She taught third-, fourth- and fifth-grades.
In 1930, she married J.L. "Fate" Craig of Nebo and came to his family home, a farm of more than 100 acres.
The farming provided plenty of work to be done, and a break from teaching followed. In that time she bore her babies: Betty Bradley, Joe Craig, Ned Craig, Fannie Lou McNeill, Mary Alice Ballew and a daughter who died in infancy.
She also crocheted, quilted, "made pretty things," and raised the children. She joined Nebo Baptist Church and is today known as their oldest living member.
Eventually she returned to the classroom, teaching at Dysartsville, then at Nebo. She taught primary grades, then high school French and English for a spell.
"I thoroughly enjoyed teaching high school," said Craig. "The kids just took to me."
Craig retired from teaching school, but not Sunday School. That remained a love and a passion for her. Her beloved Fate died in 1972, and her children were grown, although some remained very close by. But she was alone in the big old family home.
It was December 1988, a Saturday night.
"I went to bed about 20 minutes to 11," she said. "I had just got my lesson together for Sunday School and gone to bed. Something went 'Bump! Bump!' upstairs.
"I put on my robe," she continued. "I had my glasses off and my dentures in a cup. I got my gun in my hand and a flashlight."
She called up the stairs, threatening to shoot the intruder. She started up the stairs and fired a shot.
"I called up the stairs, 'I told you, I'm gonna shoot you if you don't come out,'" she remembered. Instead of an intruder, she was met by a cloud of smoke. The house was burning.
"I didn't stop for my pocketbook, I just went right out," she recounted. She stood and watched the house burn, flagging down a passing truck to ask the young men inside to go call the fire department. There was confusion about her address, she said, and by the time the fire department arrived, half of Nebo was there.
"There was no use to holler," she said. "I wasn't gonna pitch a fit. There was nothing you could do about it."
She'd had a Butterball turkey in the freezer, ready for Christmas, and the "big ol' yellow cat" that lived there went into the burned-out house and ate the turkey, she recalled with a laugh.
Instead of going to church Sunday morning, she said, neighbors began to call on her, bringing supplies of all kinds, and generous cash gifts. Instead of dwelling on the tragic loss of the family home, Craig remembers the generosity of her friends, neighbors and strangers.
"When it was all done," she said, "I had enough to buy a car," a LeSabre which she cherished for many years until fading eyesight forced her to stop driving.
Although not certain of it, Craig and her daughter, Mary Alice, felt confident she was the first woman licensed to drive in McDowell. She recalled getting her first license and passing the test easily, as she had driven many times before. She paid $2 for the license, she said.
She said she has never had a credit card and has never worn a pair of pants, although when the issue of women teachers wearing pants was an issue in the schools, she was for it. But it was not for her, she said, only for those that wanted to.
Today Craig is not as mobile as she likes to be.
"An old rocking chair knocked my knee out of place," she said, and she must use a walker to get around the house.
"I've got one eye left and one ear," she laughed good-naturedly. "And my knee is still out of place.
"I read The McDowell News every day," she said, indicating the magnifying glass she uses for reading. "I especially enjoy reading the obituaries," she said, he easy laughter ringing out again.