By Lisa Turner Daily News Staff Writer

On Monday afternoon, the mail arrived at Cordelia Lewis’ house in Weed. She sorted through the tidy brown and white stack on her lap. There were two narrow rectangular boxes ("Candy," she said) and several letters.

As usual, her mail was addressed simply to Cordelia Lewis, Weed, N. M. She and her neighbors have no addresses. Weed is too small. A number was recently attached to her fence so the volunteer firemen could find her house without any trouble. It probably wasn’t necessary. Everybody in Weed knows who Cordelia Lewis is, and where to find her.

Lewis, who ran a thriving country business for 30 years in the heart of the Sacramento Mountains, will be 100 years old this Saturday. Age isn’t much of an impediment to Cordelia Lewis. She looks 75 and acts 50.

Sometimes she thinks 20. Right now she’s reading the autobiography of automobile mongul Lee Iacocca.

"He tells you how he made it. So many people make a fortune and they do all these durn things. But he’s the only one who tells you how he made it." she said.

Although she seeks Iococca’s advice, Cordelia Lewis is not someone who needs to be told how to get along in life. She’s naturally independent. During her long life, she’s moved west, traveled east and returned home to start her own business in a time when most women never dreamed of doing such things. Her accomplishments, common today, turned heads in those days.

Lewis’ roots in Weed are more than 100 years old. Her grandfather, George Washington Lewis, moved to Weed in 1884.

"He built a log house with just an ax." She said. That house still stands.

When she was young, her family moved to Crow Flats and ranched. "My daddy, he went broke, like all ranchers do." she said. Lewis’ father went to Mexico to make another go of ranching, and she moved to El Paso to live with her grandparents.

When she was a young woman, Lewis sold vegetables, working 60 hours a week for $12.

"I worked that way for three years and I saved $75." she recalls. She wrote to various Chambers of Commerce in the West and discovered that the employment laws were different in California.

"They would only work women 48 hours a week. And they paid you $16 a week." So she moved to Los Angeles. At night, she took classes.

By 1930, she had saved quite a bit of money. It was time to travel.

"I went to New York, Buffalo, Chicago and Washington D.C.," she said. What impressed her the most about her travels? In those days, everybody burned coal to stay worm. Lewis has vivid recollections of soot—soot in everyone’s hair and clothes, soot-stained faces.

"I was glad to leave there....what impressed me the most was to go back to California where everything was pretty." she said.

Times were good for Cordelia Lewis. Then the Depression arrived. Lewis moved to Oklahoma City and managed a beauty salon owned by her cousins. In 1942, the army built Tinker Field (now Tinker Air Force Base) and the populations swelled. Lewis sublet a room of her apartment, which added to her income.

Before the war ended, she moved back to Weed.

"I don’t like cities. I like the country." she said.

Lewis worked a series of jobs before deciding to borrow $5,000 from her cousin to purchase Cash Grocery and Bar in 1947. It was a shrewd business decision. The enterprise flourished, She sold a variety of goods including men’s underwear, spark plugs and canned goods.

"I worked myself to death," she said. "I got so durned tired. "But it was worth it.

"I made a darned good livin’."

The bar section was a popular hangout.

"People used to say to me, "Don’t you ever drink/" I said "God, no, I sell it. I don’t drink it."

Lewis lived in a room in the back of the store.

In 1970, Lewis retired and sold her liquor license to the Mescalero Apache Tribe. She converted the store into her home. She still lives there today.

Lewis never married. "I never had time. I was too busy trying to make a livin’." For many years after she sold the store she ranched.

Motel rooms in Cloudcroft are now starting to fill as old friends and family members arrive for Lewis’ 100^th birthday. She’s looking forward to the next one.

"If I live for a few more years, I will have lived in three centuries," She said.

Alamogordo Daily News 1999.  Retyped by Elaine Watson March 21, 2009.

At Age 100, Cordelia Lewis Defies Law of Gravity

Cordelia Lewis’ recent 100^th birthday bash in Weed may have been the most pivotal Otero County event in years.

At least 600 people attended, traveling from Colorado, Texas, Illinois and many other places to pay homage to Lewis, who danced at her birthday party on Feb. 27 at the Weed gym.

The gym is not far from the log cabin where Lewis was born. She’s lived in the Sacramento Mountains most of her life.

"There were so many people there I couldn’t visit with all of them." Lewis later told the Daily News. "We had a good time."

A synopsis of Lewis’ life story was printed in the Feb. 24 edition of the Daily News. News of her birthday has spread nationwide. She’s received congratulations and newspaper clippings from as far away as New York state.

"I haven’t gotten through all my cards yet because I’m going through them one by one. I got over 100 of them." She said.

At the party, former Cloudcroft Mayor Mike Nivison sang a song about Lewis based on her infatuation with the Buick Roadmaster. (Best Cordelia Lewis story: "There’s all those little stories about Cordelia." Nivison said. "Her family always drove Buick Roadmasters. They stopped making them about 1952." But a few years ago, "they" started making them again. Cordelia Lewis journeyed to "them" somewhere in southern New Mexico.

"Sonny, do you have any Buick Roadmasters?’ She asked the young man, who probably had one hand in his pocket as he adjusted his mismatched tie. "Ma’am, I only got one," he said. "Well, I only need one. Bring it on up." She said. So he did. And she’s been driving that Buick Roadmaster ever since.

"I’ve been behind her driving up that hill,’ Nivison said "—Here you’ve got someone defying the law of gravity----She’s not 100 years old. That’s all there is to it.")

State Sen. Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, was responsible for a resolution approved by the Senate in Lewis’ honor. The resolution highlights some of Lewis’ accomplishments, such as helping to bring electricity to her community through her work with the Rural Electric Co-op in Cloudcroft.

She’s received letters of congratulations from President Bill Clinton, Gov. Gary Johnson and numerous officials at the federal, state and local levels.

During the party, friends read honors and accolades to her. They illuminated the fact that during her lifetime, the world has moved from wagon wheels to rocket ships:

* The automobile was 3 years old when Lewis was born. She was around during the birth of the airplane and the sinking of the Titanic.

* She lived through two world wars and witnessed U.S. participation in eight armed conflicts. One was the only foreign war conducted on U. S. Soil—when Pancho Villa raided Columbus, N. M. In 1916.

* She felt the effect of the stock market crash in 1929 and survived the long, devastating Depression of the 1930's.

*She experienced Prohibition and its repeal, and was the first woman to own and operate a tavern in Otero County.

* She was at the polls when women first voted in 1920. She hasn’t failed to cast her vote since.

*When Lewis was a young woman, Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis. She saw the first manned space flight and the first man to walk on the moon.

*She was around before television, computers, electric blankets, panty hose and the Pill.

*She was 51 when the first atomic bomb was detonated at Trinity Site.

*Lewis has seen 18 U.S. presidents, saw the first president ever to be elected to a third term, saw a president assassinated, saw the only president to resign from office and the second president in history impeached.

*She was instrumental in getting secondary roads improved in her neighborhood by out-talking 23 men, her friends say.

* She was around when Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs, Roger Maris hit 61 and Mark McGwire hit 70.

*She says the secret to her longevity is that she finds something to laugh about everyday and eats just what she pleases "mainly beef."

Lewis has never been bedridden with an illness.

(From Nivison’s song: "Montana to L.A., Cheyenne to Santa Fe; We rambled down the road; Leave chance or fate; No highway too long, my Buick Big and Strong....")

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Editor’s note: Otero County Probate Judge Yvonne Oliver contributed to this story.

Alamogordo Daily News 1999. Retyped by Elaine Watson March 21, 2009.