Louise McCrae reflects on 100 years of change and resilience

When Louise McCrae arrived in New York from rural Virginia as a young woman, she carried with her a determination to keep moving forward.

McCrae, who turned 100 on May 22, moved through life navigating extraordinary social change, from segregated schools and hand-cranked Ford Model Ts to credit cards and smartphones. Along the way, she built a career in nutrition and food services, visited dozens of countries and has never missed voting in a single presidential election.

Born in 1926 in Nathalie, Virginia, McCrae grew up one of seven children in a farming family during the Great Depression. Her father had a seventh-grade education, and her mother a third-grade education.

“We were poor, but I didn’t know that we were,” McCrae said. “We had plenty of food because we were farmers. We had vegetables, corn and everything we needed, so as children we never felt like we were missing anything.”

Her parents raised crops including wheat and tobacco, while her mother and grandmother made clothing by hand. McCrae recalled her grandmother spinning fabric herself and sewing dresses from fertilizer sacks.

“My mother made us clothing from those burlap bags,” she said. “We could look at a catalog and say, ‘I want this dress,’ and my grandmother could make it. I never had a store-bought dress until I was 16 years old.”

Education, she said, was nonnegotiable in her household. McCrae attended a one-room schoolhouse before taking a bus to high school each day.

“My parents made sure that we went to school,” she said. “My two brothers were the only two boys in my neighborhood who finished high school. A lot of families kept children home to work, but my parents believed education mattered.”

When she graduated at 18, McCrae attended Virginia State College for two years before moving to New York. Originally hoping to become a dressmaker but lacking the certification, she instead enrolled at the New York Institute of Dietetics after a cousin encouraged her to continue her education.

That decision launched a decades-long career in nutrition and food service management. McCrae worked first at Montefiore Medical Center and later at Mount Sinai Hospital, where she supervised kitchens and trained dietitians despite initially holding only a certificate.

“I had pantry mates that went back to college and became dietitians and I didn’t even know I had inspired them until years later when one of them told me,” she said, describing changes she helped introduce to workplace benefits and educational opportunities.

Eventually, she earned additional credentials through part-time studies at New York University and later joined New York City’s school food system, managing budgets and overseeing cafeteria operations in public schools, including Wingate High School in Brooklyn.

“I was never in the red,” McCrae said proudly of managing school budgets. “You had your own budget and had to watch every dollar, and I always made sure things were done correctly.”

Outside of work, McCrae cultivated an active life filled with quilting, gardening, bowling, dancing and travel. She said she has visited more than 62 countries and territories, including Japan, Australia and Argentina, often traveling independently well into her later years.

“I like to be active,” she said. “I think because if you use it, you don’t lose it. I like to dance, I like to travel and I like to keep my mind working.”

At her 100th birthday celebration, she was still dancing — especially when the DJ played the Electric Slide, one of her favorite dances.

“I love the Electric Slide,” she said with a laugh. “When they put it on at my party, I was dancing right away. Even now, if I hear the music, I want to get up.”

McCrae lived independently in Manhattan until 2023, after a fall and broken hip led to a difficult recovery period and eventually her move into assisted living. Even now, despite vision problems and health challenges, she remains remarkably sharp, reciting decades-old prices and memories with ease.

“When I was in high school,” she recalled, “you could buy a Goodbar for five cents. One little Goodbar now costs more than two dollars, and gas was only a few cents a gallon back then.”

She marveled at the pace of technological and cultural change she has witnessed over the course of a century.

“When I was growing up, I didn’t have a telephone,” McCrae said. “There were no paved streets where we lived, only dirt roads. Now people walk around with little computers in their pockets.”

Asked what she believes has helped her live such a long life, McCrae pointed less to luck than to discipline, activity and kindness.

“I cooked everything from scratch,” she said. “And the most important thing, I treat people the way I want to be treated. My mother always told us to be kind and not argue with people.”

Then, echoing advice passed down from her mother nearly a century ago, she offered one final lesson.

“My mother always said, ‘Don’t argue with people. Let them talk. You listen,’” McCrae said. “Because if you say something, you can’t take it back, and then you have to live with it afterward.”