Seventy-two years later: Dr. Jane Ellen McAllister at the front door to her house in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Dr. Jane: "I refuse to waste time, effort, and endure pain to have teeth put in. If my friends don't want to see a toothless old woman, they will not come. I go nowhere at anytime. Once I had not even a laugh wrinkle! Hard to say goodbye to yesterday. My hands always impress me--the hands of a hard-working woman, a do-it-yourself woman, cutting limbs, run ning a mower. Behind me are my steps leading from the lower level of my life to the upper. I pull myself happily up hundreds of times a day. I leave the door open so that people know I am here, since I don't hear well. The dogs guard the door so I have no fear. To my sur prise, I welcome my callers instead of frightening them with my change from smooth youth to fat, wrinkled, stooped old woman. I have a half-way house on the first four steps by the porch."