[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 23022]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            WISHING MRS. RUTH LINCOLN A HAPPY 112TH BIRTHDAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Snyder) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SNYDER. Madam Speaker, today, September 30, is the birthday of 
Mrs. Ruth Lincoln. I say today is her birthday because, unfortunately, 
she passed away 2 weeks ago, but she had been looking forward to 
turning 112 years old today.
  This is a picture I took of her about a year ago. This is my son Penn 
Snyder. This is Mrs. Ruth Lincoln. She was born in 1897 as Ruth Myers. 
What I like about this picture is Mrs. Lincoln, born in 1897, spans the 
20th century with my little boy who was born in 2006. It's a 21st 
century little boy connecting with the 19th century.
  She was born in a log cabin in Oklahoma in 1897. She married Ben 
Lincoln. Her first vote, her first Presidential election vote was the 
election in which women in this country were allowed to vote for the 
first time, and despite her efforts, President Warren Harding was 
elected President over her vote for Mr. James Cox.
  She graduated from college from Oklahoma A&M, which became Oklahoma 
State. I had visited several times with Mrs. Lincoln in the last 
several years. She loved growing old. She told me how she loved growing 
old, and it became very important to us to find out exactly how old she 
was growing; meaning, was she the oldest person in Pulaski County? Was 
she the oldest person in Arkansas? Would, at some point, she become the 
oldest person in the United States? She loved that aspect of growing 
old.
  She loved Bridge and was an avid player until late in her life. She 
had loved her family, and she had a lot of family. In fact, many of you 
know Senator Blanche Lincoln, who is married to Mrs. Lincoln's grandson 
Steve.
  It is difficult to say that someone who was 2 weeks short of turning 
112 died unexpectedly, but a lot of us in central Arkansas looked 
forward to Mrs. Ruth Lincoln's birthday. She would always do something 
special. I remember one a couple of years ago. I think it was her 
110th, when she prided herself on going out in the middle of a bridge 
we call, in Arkansas, the Big Dam Bridge that crossed the Arkansas 
River and had quite a festivity out there when she walked some on the 
bridge after being helped out of her wheelchair.
  In the last few months, she had been dwindling. Her daughter was 
quoted as saying that she knew it was her time, but I know Mrs. Lincoln 
well enough to know she was hoping that her time would be several years 
from now. She was proudly hoping that perhaps she could become the 
oldest person in the world. Today we celebrate the memory of Mrs. Ruth 
Lincoln on what would have been her 112th birthday.

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