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Statesville siblings have lived together for 50 years
Bruce Matlock photo
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Published: November 14, 2009
Leona remembers things more clearly than her big sister, Nettie.
"Nettie doesn't have Alzheimer's or anything like that," Leona quickly notes. "Her memory is just a little weak, I guess."
But the sisters admit they aren't as sharp as they were, say, the year Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs for the Yankees, or when Charlie Chaplain appeared in his famous role as the Little Tramp in the film, "The Gold Rush;" or that fateful day when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
The sisters ranged in age from 9 to 33 over that time frame.
Leona Newman is now 93. Nettie Campbell is 101.
The sisters have lived together for most of their lives, including the past 50 years consecutively.
"Nettie is everything to me," Leona said. "She's everything."
When Nettie is asked if the feeling is mutual, she gets misty-eyed and nods yes.
Most of the last half-century during which the sisters have lived as roommates was spent in a small, nondescript corner apartment on Medlin Street, just down the street from N.B. Mills Elementary School.
"It was a nice May day when we moved in there," recalled Leona. "I don't remember much else about it, but I know it was a beautiful day in May."
The year was 1960 and the sisters were the first two people chosen to live in the apartments, which were run by a public-private consortium that was the precursor to what became the Statesville Housing Authority a decade later.
Nettie and Leona lived there, at 300 Medlin, until earlier this year. That's when Leona injured her knee and was forced to spend an extended period of time in the hospital.
With her little sister out of commission for a while, family members felt it would be better if Nettie was moved to living quarters in which care could be provided for her and Leona when her leg healed.
So for the past several months, the ladies have been residents of Statesville Place, an assisted living facility in northeast Statesville that specializes in elderly care and memory care among other things.
"Our apartment was such a nice place to live, and I hated to leave," said Leona. She added, however, that she has come to like her new digs.
The jury is still out for Nettie on Statesville Place.
"She just hated to leave," Leona said of Nettie.
Nettie smiles a lot. And when told that she looked very good for a person her age, she puffed her hair as if to strike a pose and asked with an affected flirtatiousness in her voice, "Am I pretty?"
When told she looked strong, Nettie balled her hand into a fist and with a playful smile said, "I feel strong. You want me to hit you?"
During their working years, the sisters — who have outlived six other siblings — were employed by a number of cotton mills and briefly lived in the Greensboro/High Point area.
While neither of the women had any children, Leona was married for a short time in the 1940s. Her husband died of cancer after the couple had been married for four years and she never re-married.
"Nettie never found the right man," Leona said.
But the two are content to have found each other.
"I don't know what I'd do without her," Leona said. "I need her and she needs me."
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