A 102-year-old woman who has lived through the Spanish flu, the Great Depression, World War II, and multiple U.S. recessions has common-sense, yet sagacious, advice for people fearing the unknown: control what you can control.
"I've been through so many things," Lucille Ellson told The Washington Post. "To cope with this virus, and all that's going on, I would tell people to not get stressed about planning far ahead.
"You can't do it. A long time ago, I started making a list every morning of what I had to do. It was the only thing I could control, and I stuck to it, you hear me?"
Ellson, still sharp from over a century of life, compares this global coronavirus pandemic to nothing, except perhaps her lasting memory of American life during World War II.
"I spent so much time reading the ration book," she told the Post. "The grocery store shelves were empty. It wasn't quite like now, because you were allowed outside, but there was the same fear. That we didn't know what was going to happen tomorrow."
She was born Dec. 30, 1917, right before the Spanish Flu, which she only remembers through second-hand stories.
But, she told the Post, "if I can preach for a minute," this too shall pass.
"I learned that from living, I guess," she said. "You see a lot when you get to 102."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.