It was 1959, and she had visited the U.S. nine years earlier, but this was permanent.
“I wanted to come here,” Billy Lamb said. “It’s a beautiful country, sir.”
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This woman has defied the longest of odds. As a single mother she became a successful businesswoman who raised her three children — two daughters Dominique and Maryline and son William — in Middletown and recently celebrated her 100th birthday. .
Her children graduated from Middletown High School, and the two daughters graduated from Miami University. In 1978, she married John Lamb, Middletown Municipal Court judge from 1954-83. He died in 2002.
Her family held a small birthday party Saturday at the Middletown home she shares with her daughter Dominique , 70. The family was hoping to host a large open house, but those plans were changed due to the coronavirus.
Lamb was asked what it’s like to turn 100.
“I believe in destiny,” said Lamb, whose French accent remains after living in the U.S. for more than 60 years. “When my time here is done, I’ll be ready. I don’t feel that way yet. Maybe somebody is protecting me.”
She certainly doesn’t look or act her age. On this day, she walked from her TV room to the outside porch without a cane or walker. Her memory remains agile. She gave up driving 10 years ago. Her daughters said their mother drinks one glass of wine a day for lunch, her main meal, and ends her evening with a nightcap.
“Of course,” Lamb said with a smile while sitting on her deck. “That’s the French way.”
Longevity is in her genes. Her grandmother and aunt lived to be older than 100.
She was born as Billy Barton on June 27, 1920, in the village of Decize in the Loire Valley of France. She lived and worked in Paris during World War II and vividly remembers the day when the American troops liberated the city.
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After immigrating to the U.S., Lamb took beautician classes in Hamilton for two months, then operated a beauty salon on Central Avenue for 25 years. She also modeled at Rike’s in downtown Dayton. Despite that work ethic, life wasn’t easy for the family. She leaned more on her relatives than government assistance. When they arrived in Middletown, they lived in a second-floor room in her father’s home on Baltimore Street.
“I work hard in the United States,” she said.
Her brothers, Roy Barton and Bill Barton, also lived in Middletown. Roy, a longtime barber on Central Avenue, died in 2011, and Bill died in 2004.
Her daughters said Middletown — like most Midwestern cities — was much less diverse in the early 1960s. They can’t remember a classmate being raised by a single mother or anyone else who spoke fluent French. Their mother was home every night, they said.
“We were very different looking back then,” Marylinesaid.
To learn English, Lamb said she watched the popular soap opera “As the World Turns.” She knew she grasped English when she understood Bob Hope’s humor, she said.
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Looking back, Lamb said she has no regrets. Nothing she would change about the last 100 years. She’s a happy woman.
“You have to make decisions that are best for your kids,” she said. “I will do whatever for them. All that mattered to me was my three kids.”
She prefers to stay home. She always has. As a young woman she rarely dated. She remembers the first time she kissed a boy on the lips while at a dance.
She coudn’t wait to ask her mother: “Am I pregnant?”
That brought eye rolls and smiles from her two daughters.
Another benefit of old age: Open your mouth and don’t worry about the filter.
Do you know someone who is 100 years old or older? Or someone turning 100 this year? The Journal-News is compiling a list of centenarians who live in the community.
Please send the person’s name, birth date and city where they live to Journal-News reporter Rick McCrabb at rick.mccrabb@coxinc.com.
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