A century of life

She drinks Gatorade with her coffee, enjoys a mostly vegetable and fruit diet and hits the gym two to three times a week. Flo Sherrill, who turned 100 years old on July 1, started this routine at age 81.

Since then, she’s made it her mission since to ask anyone who admits they don’t exercise, “what are you waiting for?”

It makes me feel good and once you start you just can’t stop,” she said. “But you’ve got to start sometime.”

The Hoover resident said she was first introduced to an exercise program in 1996 when, following angioplasty, her physician ordered rehab at St. Vincent’s Birmingham. Prior to that, she’d never given it a thought, but her son Joe enrolled them both in an exercise program at St. Vincent’s One Nineteen. 

“Flo is the perfect example of the long-term benefits exercise and healthy living have on both the body and mind, and she inspires us each and every day with her strength and determination,” said Stephanie Holderby, executive director of St. Vincent’s One Nineteen, who met Flo when she first started rehab 20 years ago.

Originally from the mining town of Crocker, Alabama, Flo and husband Joe Sherrill – to whom she was married 57 years– lived in Ensley where they welcomed a son and daughter. Jan, 63, and Joe, 73, remember their childhood years as happy but disciplined. While Flo didn’t work outside the home, they said she was always busy caring for her family and home.

“Mother was very loving but also strong willed and daddy, who was a sweetheart, decided it was best to be her right hand man and let her have her way,” Jan said. “But the combination worked beautifully.  And I remember asking if they ever fought because we never heard one argument.”

Flo said the best part of her life was her family. She and her husband moved to Hoover in 1970 and she witnessed the community’s amazing transformation.

“When we moved in there wasn’t a house on either side of ours, and a man building a home down the road set fire to the huge woods that were around us during construction,” she said. “About all there was back then were Mr. Hoover’s insurance business, a Western Grocery Store and two service stations and that’s about it.”

Riding through the city today, Flo said she continues to be astonished by the Hoover’s growth, calling it “the only place to live.”

“Everyone is so nice,” she said. “When I fell down our steep driveway some years ago, the post office people were so wonderful that they put a mailbox in my carport and bring my mail up the hill.  I told my post lady that really made me feel special.”

Flo didn’t want anything special for her 100th birthday, telling friends and family not to throw a party. So she ended up having two surprise celebrations – the first at the Hoover Senior Center, the second at St. Vincent’s One Nineteen.

“There was my family and so many friends with a cake and balloons and everyone sang,” she said. “And a lot of the children who attend the summer programs were there and they had made and all signed this big card for me. One little boy – he was six years old – said he wanted to be 100 years old, too, but knew it would take too long.”

Flo said reaching the century mark was never high on her priority list.

“I really never thought about it. It never crossed my mind,” she said. “I’d live it all over again.”