Lois Addy, 109; Strom Thurmond’s Former Baby-Sitter

Lois Crouch Matheny Addy, 109, a retired schoolteacher and principal who baby-sat for U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) when he was a boy and always voted for him, died Monday in a nursing home in Saluda, S.C., the town where she spent her whole life.

In a 1995 interview, Addy recalled taking care of a young Thurmond, whose father was a law partner with Addy’s brother-in-law.

“The easiest way to entertain him was riding horseback,” she said. “We felt like he was our little brother.”

Addy, a lifetime member of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, said she never had a drink in her life.

“I was taught as a child that it sneaks up on you,” she said. “And I never tasted a single drop of alcohol or tobacco in my life.”

Addy said she had gone to the polls for every national election since women were allowed to vote in 1920. She often was interviewed on election days when she cast her vote for the nation’s oldest and longest-serving senator.

“I’ve always supported Strom Thurmond, and I still intend to,” she said in 1996, when he ran for his last term. “It’s the brain that counts, not his physical condition. As long as you have a good, workable brain, you’re fit for office.”

Thurmond, who turned 99 on Wednesday, remembered Addy as “a fine lady.”