Bullitt County Resident Celebrates 108th Birthday

Ms. Lounetta Williams, seated, with her great-niece Lois Broughton. 

With focused eyes and a determined look on her face, Ms. Lounetta Williams flipped through the pages of a photo album. Just a few moments later, she pointed to a picture and smiled. “There it is: our Derby brunch in 1960.” Williams loves the Kentucky Derby. That was just one of several photo albums that Lounetta has. In fact, “Net,” as her family sometimes calls her, had at least eight other books stacked up on her kitchen table the day I interviewed her, each of them filled with a lifetime of memories.

After all, a person who has lived over a century has plenty of memories to look back on.

Yes, you read that right: Good Lord willing, Lounetta Williams, a lifelong resident of Bullitt County and a Salt River Electric member, will turn 108 years old on December 7.

Williams was born on December 7, 1914, on a family farm outside of Bardstown Junction in Bullitt County. At that time, the U.S. was still three years away from entering into World War I, but the Great War was already being waged abroad. As a matter of fact, the famous Christmas Armistice of 1914 would take place just a few weeks after her birth.

Lounetta was the fourth child born to James and Mary Jane Stansbury, with her siblings being Ella, Jennie and Clarence, or “Duck” as some called him. In December 1917, the family lost a husband and father when James and another family member were killed in the infamous Shepherdsville Train Wreck.

“They had been in Louisville that day doing some Christmas shopping,” Williams’ great niece Lois Broughton explains.

Williams graduated from the old Shepherdsville High School in 1932, and would marry her late husband, Bill, just three years later in 1935. Bill, an engineer, was staying in Shepherdsville while working for a Louisville-based architecture firm.

“(He) was staying at an old motel down by the (Salt River), near the railroad,” Lounetta recalls. “And (Lois’s grandmother) was living on the other side of the river and I was staying with her. I was going to school in Louisville, a business school. I would take the bus (to Louisville), and every morning he would wait over at the motel in the morning to see me catch the bus there. Oh, it was exciting!” she says with a chuckle.

She admits that while times were tough getting married during the Great Depression, the young couple made things work, spending 56 wonderful years together before Bill passed away in 1992.

Lounetta and her husband Bill, pictured a few years after their wedding in 1935. 

Traveling was something the two enjoyed, getting to see all kinds of landmarks and cities around the world. There was Holland, France, England and even Hawaii in 1973, to name a few. That trip gave them the chance to see Pearl Harbor, a tragic event that Lounetta shares a connection with.

She had turned 27 years old on December 7, 1941, the day the Japanese Empire bombed Pearl Harbor. She remembers being in Louisville that afternoon when the attack was announced on the radio. “It was a sad day,” she recalls.

An important piece of who Lounetta is, and a constant throughout her life is her faith. Williams still attends church in-person whenever possible. Charles Hatfield, a church friend, stops by on Sunday mornings to pick Lounetta up. Hatfield says people always want to come up and see Lounetta at church and say hello.

“You love to sit next to her at church because you’ll get to see everyone, too,” Hatfield says.

As our interview was coming to a close, I asked Lounetta the question put to any centenarian (someone who is 100 years or older): what’s the secret to a long life? Her eyes lit up, and without too much of a pause, she gave her answer. “My attitude.”

“It’s anyone’s attitude,” she continues. “Get up in the morning, be happy, and think (of) what you can do for somebody. And don’t gripe; I don’t like gripers.”

It’s one thing to say it, but she’s practiced what she preaches for years.

“I’ve known her since I was a little girl, and I’ve been able to see her live it,” Broughton explains. “I don’t ever think I’ve seen her angry or upset. She always takes the positive path.”

Lounetta says she doesn’t have the goal of being the oldest living Kentuckian, instead just taking life a day at a time. But armed with her faith, family and friends and her positive attitude, it wouldn’t be surprising to see her reach that milestone one day.

In the meantime, if you see Ms. Lounetta on or around December 7, make sure to wish her a happy birthday!