Looking Back
By Jaclyn Elledge
Perspectives Editor

In an increasingly hectic world where globalization is an imposing force, life remains simple for Zula Hoover.

Affectionately known as “Tin” by relatives, friends and neighbors, she lives on Flint Ridge, an area in the rural part of southern Iredell County, approximately 50 miles from the university, where she has lived her entire life. At the age of 88, Hoover’s outlook on life reflects a seasoned existence in a different world and a different era.

Hoover and her twin sister, Eula Tucker, were the second and third of Henry and Martha Tucker’s five children. Their father was a cotton farmer, and they grew up working in the rocky fields of Flint Ridge. Christened as Zula Margaret and Eula Isabel, the twins quickly became known as Tiny, which was soon shortened to Tin, and Big as nicknames, based on their size as infants, lasted for life.

“I like my nickname better than my name,” Hoover said. “When I got married, (husband) Archie asked me if he should call me Zula or Tin, and I said, ‘Just call me Tin.’ I like that better than Zula.”

Hoover lived at home with her parents, her older brother Ralph, her sister Big, and her younger brothers Floyd and Jim until 1946 when she married Archie Hoover. While Hoover lived at home, Ralph married and began a family, Floyd left to serve in the United States Army during World War II where he was captured by the Germans as a prisoner of war and Jim married before leaving Flint Ridge to join the Army as a result of the draft.

Through all of this, Hoover and Big remained at home, writing their brothers who were serving in the military each day and reading their brothers’ letters to their parents.

“I guess Mama and Daddy could read and write, but Big and I always did it for them,” Hoover said. “We didn’t have a lot of formal education, but I always thought that if I could read and write, I could learn anything I wanted to learn.”

She recalled walking several miles every day with her sister to meet the mailman to send the family’s daily letters to Floyd and Jim and receive any letters they might have sent.

When the war was over, she met Archie Hoover, a neighbor who volunteered in the Navy during World War II.

“Archie always told me that he went around the world so he could come home and find a girl,” Hoover said.

After they married on July 20, 1946, the Hoovers built a house down the hill from her childhood home on Flint Ridge. Archie worked for Godfrey Lumber Company, and Hoover worked as a seamstress until their daughters, Helen and Gladys were born in 1947 and 1952, respectively. Although Hoover remained at home with her children, she continued to sew at home and then returned to work when Gladys was old enough to go to school.

She retired in the late 1970s and still lives in the house she and Archie built in the 1940s. Widowed in 1994, Hoover lived across from her twin sister on Tucker Road in Flint Ridge for several years before Big, who never married, went to a nursing home facility “in town.” Big died in December 2000, and while Hoover has lost two brothers, Ralph and Floyd, losing her twin has been especially hard.

“Even though we didn’t always get along, she was my best friend, and I miss her,” Hoover said with tears in her eyes. “But I’m still alive, and life is still worth living.”

“I try to do things that keep me going. I want to be active as long as I can. I want to do for myself as long as I can, and when I can’t anymore, I’m expecting some help,” Hoover said, speaking about her daughters, Helen and Gladys, who continue to come to home for Sunday dinner. Helen and her family now live beside Hoover, having moved back to Flint Ridge after living for more than 20 years in Arizona, New Mexico and Florida, and Gladys lives only a few minutes away. Still, Hoover is often lonely.

“I never used to be a talker,” she said, “But now, I talk all the time. I think it’s because I don’t get a chance to do it very often.”

Church is Hoover’s primary social outlet, although she receives telephone calls and visits from friends and family several times each week. Occasionally, she also stops to chat with neighbors on one of her two daily walks.

“Everyone is just so busy,” Hoover said. “I wish they would realize that rushing around so is just not worth it. Life is to be enjoyed. I believe that.”

And every day, Hoover, who is still tiny at 104 pounds, enjoys life on Flint Ridge, the same life she has relished for 88 years.