By Rick Steelhammer
For HDMedia
When she was born, World War I had been over for less than a year, Woodrow Wilson was president and the federal government had just begun selling off components of the newly built — but already obsolete — Army Ordnance Plant in Nitro, which her father, a carpenter, helped build.
Today, Virginia Elva Cadd is the oldest known living West Virginian.
On Thursday, she celebrated her 107th birthday with 100 or so of her closest friends and neighbors with a birthday reception at Charleston’s Harmony at Southridge senior living community, where she has lived — independently — since 2020.
“Everyone has been wonderful to me,” Cadd said after servings of birthday cake had been distributed and a concert by her favorite musical group, the Biehle Family, featuring five violin-playing Charleston-area siblings, had concluded.
“I’m supposed to be the oldest one in West Virginia right now,” she said. “Well, I’m old enough that I lost most of my hearing. I think I inherited that from my husband’s family.
Her parents’ genetic traits, on the other hand, may have played a role in her longevity. Her mother lived to age 100, while her father died at 96.
Cadd remains an avid reader, though she’s shifted to large print books. She drove until age 97 and remained in her Cross Lanes home until the age of 100, when she broke her neck in a fall. Soon after recovering — in a remarkably brief period of time — she moved into an independent living unit at Harmony at Southridge, which had just opened.
“I’ve been here six years now,” she said. “I love it here. Everybody has been wonderful to me.”
With support from Harmony caregivers and a daughter, Jeanette Bowen of South Charleston, Cadd continues to live in an independent living apartment at Harmony, where she does her own laundry and helps keep things tidy.
“She’s very neat and particular about the way she wants things organized,” Bowen said.
Cadd uses a walker to help her move about her apartment, then switches to her power chair to spend time outside or visit Harmony’s dining room, where she has dinner with the same group of friends most evenings.
A lifelong Kanawha Valley resident
Born in Nitro, the eldest of seven brothers and sisters, she has lived in the Kanawha Valley all her life. Cadd and her youngest sister, Ruth, 20 years her junior, are the only surviving siblings.
Cadd married her husband, George Cadd, in 1939, and the couple had three children — Bowen, Stan Cadd, a former teacher and coach at South Charleston High School who died in 2009, and Linda Metz of South Carolina.
Over the years, the family lived in Charleston and Dunbar before moving to Cross Lanes.
George Cadd, who worked for FMC for 42 years, died in 1981. Virginia Cadd worked as a personal shopper at the former Diamond department store in downtown Charleston.
“I got to know where every item was in every department in that store,” she said. “I took orders over the phone, wrote them down, made sure they were filled and mailed them out.”
On the home front, Cadd loved to cook, and more specifically, bake pies and cakes. And she was happy to share her creations with friends and neighbors.
“She was the workhorse on our street,” said Steve Reynolds, a former neighbor on Sun Valley Drive in Cross Lanes, who, with his wife, Emily, was on hand for Cadd’s birthday bash. “She was always stopping by to offer us bean or whatever she had cooked. And her hummingbird cake? Oh, my golly!”
Cadd attributed her longevity to abstaining from smoking and drinking, eating healthy food (with occasional exceptions for sweet baked goods), and staying active and engaged with others.
“This is what 107 years old can look like,” said Bowen, nodding toward her mother. “She has the will to live and be happy. I think she’s done good.”
Cadd’s birthday was celebrated a week prior to its official date — Aug. 13 — to coincide with a previously scheduled performance by the Biehle Family, whom she calls “my fiddlers.”
West Virginia record holder
The oldest West Virginian on record, according to LongeviQuest, which maintains a verified global database of those living more than 100 years, was Monroe County native Ettie Mae Greene, who lived 114 years and 160 days prior to her death in February 1992.
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