LOOKING BACK : The People...

Karen Martishie Hancock Carter hasn’t stepped outside her small mobile home for months. And the prayer group that she led every Thursday (View, April 12) has been put on hold.

“I’ve just not been feeling very well,” says Carter, who’ll turn 107 on Jan. 22. She’s referring to the infirmities of aging--broken hips, failing eyesight, lapsing memory and a heart condition, which she treats with a shot of whiskey in a glass of water.

“But I don’t mind staying home. I can pray, alone, for a lot of people.”

Born in Missouri in 1886, Carter had four children, has at least 100 grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren and has outlived three husbands.

Carter, whose long white locks cascade beyond her knees, hopes she will be back to her old self after the New Year so she can sear the ends of her hair, a custom she says she learned from Blackfoot Indians.

“It’s been a wonderful life,” Carter says. “Not that I haven’t had lots of sorrow, but when I put those moments aside, I still know that I have had a wonderful life. It’s up to God if he wants me to see 107.

“There are a lot of people who are worse off than I am. I don’t need to get out much any more. I can pray from my wheelchair, from my bed. I go to sleep with the angels and I wake up with God in my heart. What else could an old woman ask for?”