Louise “Sammie” McClelland was born before the advent of television, paved roads, and many of the modern conveniences we now consider essential.

Born in Slidell on April 14, 1920, McClelland will be 105 this year. She has lived for many years in an average-looking white house nestled among a row of azalea bushes along a residential street in Elton.

McClelland, believed to be the oldest resident in Jeff Davis Parish, stopped driving three years ago after turning 102. She credits her continued youthfulness and good health to her deep Christian faith.

“Only by God’s blessing have I lived this long,” McClelland said. “I’m so very thankful and I thank him dearly many times during the day. I think people don’t realize how much we need to thank Him because you have a roof over your head, you’ve got food to eat, and people who help you out.”

McClelland also attributes her longevity to following all the right rules: eating right, obeying the Commandments, and following doctors’ advice.

She spends her days reading the Bible, praying the Rosary, and watching Mass on television. When possible, she still attends weekly Mass at church, though recent surgery on her legs has kept her home on Sundays.

She still manages her own taxes and pays bills online. McClelland also uses her cellphone and laptop to send emails and text messages to friends, and she enjoys reading books on her Kindle.

Due to arthritis, she’s had to give up many of her favorite activities in recent years, including working in her yard, playing cards, cooking, and dancing. She tries to exercise when she can and enjoys swimming, though she acknowledges she isn’t as strong of a swimmer as she once was.

Despite the challenges, she still lives at home with the support of friends and caretakers.

McClelland, who was the second of seven children and the only girl, has outlived all of her siblings.

She grew up on the bayou, where she and her brothers learned to swim in front of their grandmother’s house.

“My mother would tell me not to swim across the bayou, and I’d say, ‘Okay.’ But one day she caught me and I was three-quarters of the way across the bayou.”

She fondly remembers attending church with her cousins and brothers, navigating a skiff down the bayou. The children made the journey unsupervised because her parents remained at home to care for her younger siblings.

“We’d go a mile down the bayou to the church in a skiff for Mass and Catechism,” she said. “The church had a place to tie up the skiff.”

Everyone living on that side of the bayou got to church the same way, she said.

Growing up as the only girl in a family of boys, McClelland had to care for her younger siblings and help with the cleaning and cooking.

“Of course, being the only girl, I had to learn a lot of things,” she said. “One of them was cooking. My mother would be outside washing clothes and I was standing on a chair by the wood stove cooking, and I was only six or seven years old.”

Growing up, she learned to sew out of necessity and began making her own clothes, as her mother stopped sewing clothes for her due to her dissatisfaction with the fit. Although her mother initially made her clothes because the family couldn’t afford to buy new ones, she continued sewing well into her 90s and even made her own wedding dress.

McClelland recalls her family’s resourcefulness during the Great Depression. As they were already impoverished, they relied heavily on their garden, cows, pigs and chickens, and the bayou, which was abundant with fish and shrimp.

Because her family could not afford to send all the children to school, she stayed out of high school for two years.

“We were very poor and one of us was going to have to stay out of school, either my older brother or I,” she said. “I don’t know why me, but it was decided that he needed an education more than I did because back then women just got married and had children.”

McClelland returned to school and graduated in 1939 while in the 11th grade.

She spent most of her life in Slidell until she attended LSU and earned her degree in education. In 1965, she received her master’s degree from McNeese and later earned her Master’s Plus 30 from various schools.

After graduating from LSU, she began her teaching career in 1943 at the age of 22. She taught for 35 years before retiring from Elton High School in 1978, where she taught high school math.

“I had majored in English and French because I was thinking about becoming a librarian, but I couldn’t afford to continue my education for it, so I started teaching in Ascension Parish during the strawberry season,” she said. “When the superintendent hired me, we shook hands, and he said, ‘Your word is as good as mine.’ I was naive, so I shook hands with him.”

She didn’t know that the teacher she was replacing was furthering her education and would reclaim her job upon her return.

She recalled, “I quit and went home, and said I would never teach again.”

However, her break was short-lived.

“I was looking for another job when I received a telegram from Acadia Parish, asking if I would be willing to teach math in Iota,” she said.

With a minor in math, social studies and physical education, she was qualified to teach all five subjects.

In Iota, she discovered that the teacher she was replacing was entering the service for World War II. This teacher, who had taught her in high school, specially requested that she be considered as his replacement.

After two years in Iota, she moved on to teach in Crowley for six years, followed by 27 years in Elton. During this time, she primarily taught high school math, including algebra, geometry and trigonometry.

“I enjoyed my teaching very much,” she said. “Even now, I still dream about fracturing equations.”

McClelland and her late husband Arvid, affectionately known as “Big Mac,” had no children of their own, but shared a special bond with her students. She remains in close contact with many of her former students, now in their 80s and 90s. They often visit her, play card games, eat out together, and offer their help.

McClelland and Arvid’s love story began at a diner club while she was teaching and residing in a boarding house in Crowley. They enjoyed nearly 40 years of marriage until his passing in 1989.

Together, they explored almost every state in their motorhome and traveled abroad. Her adventures included visits to Ireland, France, Italy, and the Canary Islands, as well as cruises to Hawaii and the Yucatan.

During a memorable trip to Vancouver, Canada, the couple had the opportunity to see the late Pope John Paul.

“We were right behind the priests and the nuns, and he drove through in the Popemobile,” she said. “I made perfect eye contact with him; it was the strangest feeling.”

She was scheduled to be part of a group that would have an audience with the Pope; however, he passed away the night before the meeting. Instead, the group traveled to Rome for the Mass in front of St. Peter’s, which was conducted by the soon-to-be Pope Benedict. The group stood in line for several hours to view the Pope’s body before returning home.

“It was amazing how many people were lined there to view his body,” she said.