{"id":1919,"date":"2020-08-17T17:52:27","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T21:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/history\/?p=1919"},"modified":"2025-05-26T11:12:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T15:12:30","slug":"lifelong-learner-honored-by-utc-history-department","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/history\/2020\/08\/17\/lifelong-learner-honored-by-utc-history-department\/","title":{"rendered":"Lifelong Learner Honored by UTC, History Department"},"content":{"rendered":"

***<\/span><\/p>\n

This story was first posted by UTC News<\/a> and was also covered by WRCBtv<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0a—<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Michael Thompson celebrates Halie Forstner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Halie Forstner has lived through 19 presidents and two World Wars.<\/p>\n

She drove until two years ago when friends asked her to stop.<\/p>\n

She loves the 99-cent bacon cheeseburger at Wendy\u2019s and eats it with fries every Sunday.<\/p>\n

She lives on her own in Lookout Valley.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s 109 years old.<\/p>\n

She was born in March, but the pandemic prevented a celebration at the time. On Friday, a belated birthday party was held, complete with a four-foot-tall, two-tiered (and fake) birthday cake with \u201c109\u201d spelled out in balloons on top and a tiara that said \u201cBirthday Girl\u201d for her to wear.<\/p>\n

At the party, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Chancellor Steve Angle presented her with a certificate declaring her an honorary Moc. Michael Thompson, head of the UTC History Department, also gave her a certificate pronouncing her as honorary president of the History Club and honorary chair of the History Student Advisory Board.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m overwhelmed,\u201d Forstner said, speaking from behind her face mask, hands steepled in front of it. \u201cI can\u2019t hug you, but I do thank you from the bottom of my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in 1911 on the Georgia side of Sand Mountain, she graduated in 1930 from Chattanooga High School on Third Street, the building now housing Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences. She enrolled in the University of Chattanooga\u2014now UTC\u2014and attended for a short time, but the Great Depression hit and the money just wasn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Michael Thompson celebrates Halie Forstner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMy biggest regret is not being able to go to college,\u201d she has said. \u201cWe just couldn\u2019t afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his remarks, Angle mentioned her disappointment about college, but described her as a \u201clifelong learner.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour grace and perseverance are an inspiration to all of us. We\u2019ve heard the stories of your life and your passion for learning and we know circumstances did not permit you to finish,\u201d he said. \u201cWe all hope we can be as active and sharp at 109 as you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Longtime friend Linda Moss Mines says she and Forstner \u2014 \u201cMiss Halie\u201d to pretty much everyone, although she says \u201cCall me Halie.\u201d \u2014 usually sit together in church. But Mines was a bit late last Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got there and she said, \u2018Moving kinda slow this morning, aren\u2019t you?\u2019 \u201d said Mines, historian for Hamilton County and Chattanooga.<\/p>\n

Forstner lost family members in the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. She remembers the passage of the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0Amendment in 1919, which gave women the right to vote. Both of her grandfathers fought in the Civil War. But the fact that she made it to 109 never crosses her mind, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it\u2019s true, but as far as feeling 109 years old? No. Even with the aches and pains \u2014 and I do have a lot of things wrong \u2014 but 109? That\u2019s a period of time,\u201d she says with a laugh.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>She was married for 52 years to Charles Forstner, who died in 1990. They had no children, and she has lived on her own since. She is now in a house across the street from her church, Lookout Valley Presbyterian.<\/p>\n

She worked at Loveman\u2019s department store and Chattanooga Medicine Co., which now is Chattem, but stayed the longest at TVA, hired soon after it was created in 1933. Her first job, she recalled, was boxing up candy at a little store in Chattanooga during the Christmas holidays.<\/p>\n

Her ability to recall details from the early 20th<\/sup>\u00a0century doesn\u2019t surprise her friends. Nor is her refusal to let her age define her.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s got a mind like a steel trap,\u201d said Jim Bailiff, who has been her neighbor for 16 years.<\/p>\n

A few days ago he took dinner to her and \u201cshe was ironing in the kitchen,\u201d he said, making the movement of pushing an iron back and forth.<\/p>\n

David Carroll, anchor and reporter at WRCB-TV\/Channel 3, met Forstner four years ago when he interviewed her for a story. They\u2019ve been friends since.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s delightfully opinionated, well-read, aware, spunky,\u201d he says. \u201cEverything you would expect a 109-year-old person to be, she is not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Thompson’s remarks appear below the video.<\/em><\/p>\n