One of Limestone County’s own had the chance this week to compete in a field of 75 ladies for the title of 2011 Ms. Alabama Nursing Home.

Lula Lee, 95, an Athens nursing home resident at Athens Rehabilitation and Senior Care Center, formerly Athens Convalescent and Rehab Center, competed at the Wynfrey Hotel in Birmingham for the chance at the title and the opportunity to serve as a spokesperson for nursing home residents and the Alabama Nursing Home Association.

Lee, a Tanner native, earned the title of queen in the Athens Rehabilitation and Senior Care Center pageant earlier this year, which allowed her to compete in the statewide pageant. Since her time at the center, she has competed in four pageants.

Although Lee didn’t bring home the title Monday, organizers said she truly captures the spirit of the pageant. The goal of pageant is to celebrate Alabama’s nursing home residents and the contributions that have made in the lives of others. “I enjoyed it,” Lee said. “I was surprised to get to see some of my family.” Family came from Tanner and Louisville, Ky., to watch her compete.

“Ms. Lula is one of our most valuable treasures here at the facility, “ said Misty Gilbert, activity director at Athens Rehabilitation and Senior Care Center. “She attends a wide variety of programs and often helps out the staff and other residents. She becomes involved not only in facility life, but in the lives of residents and staff — often asking about them if she doesn’t see them for a while.”

Lee always has advice to give. “She’s not your fairytale, milk and cookies, grandmother image that many people have when they think of the elderly,” Gilbert said. “Lula Lee is a real person. She shoots straight from the hip.” Known to others as a funny, tell-it-like-it-is prankster, Gilbert said, Lula has enjoyed life and can always find a way to look at things differently. “She has so much to share with everyone, so many stories to tell,” Gilbert said.

‘Bama girl

Lee considers her hometown to be Tanner. She said she has also lived in Belle Mina and Capshaw. “Now don’t get that twisted,” she said. “I wasn’t in prison in Capshaw. I lived out there on that land before the prison was even built. I ain’t never been to jail  ‘cause I ain’t never been caught!” she joked.

Lee admitted she hasn’t done the type of things most other people have done. “I haven’t traveled the world,” she said. “I’m a ‘Bama girl and proud of it. I’ve always stayed close to my family and church. I’ve never felt the need to go off and see what’s out there when I like what I see here.”

Lee first married when she was 16, but said it didn’t last long. She remarried at age 21 to Lee Lee, whom everyone called Buttons. “We were married 69 years,” she said. “I couldn’t get rid of him no matter how hard I tried.”

The couple never had any children, but Lee said, “I don’t want people feeling sorry for me. I ain’t never felt alone.

Lee was the eighth child in a family of 13 children. She grew up with three brothers and eight sisters.

“I took in nine of my nephews and one of my nieces,” she said. “They lived with us and we raised them.”

She cared another nephew for a few months when he was younger. “You may have heard of him,” she said. “His name is Smokey Robinson. His mama is my sister. We would have kept him longer, but they moved to Nashville.”

When it comes to Lee’s life in Tanner, she joked, “I can’t tell you too much about some of the stuff I’ve done because I don’t want to get in trouble.”

Lee said she has always stayed busy. In her lifetime she has cut and hauled wood, chopped cotton — a whole lot of cotton — cleaned houses and cooked for others. “I liked to cook,” she said. “That was probably my favorite job. I could cook a little and taste a lot.”

She was also a babysitter. “Some days I would have a whole mess of kids in the house at one time,” she said. “We always had a lot of fun though.”

Lee was brought up to work hard. “We would spend all day working in cotton fields and gardens,” she said. “We got paid 50 cents a day for picking cotton. The sun would just bake your tail, and all you were left with was 50 cents. It finally went up to $1 a day and boy you though you was rich when Saturday came.”

Favorite Things

One of Lee’s passions in life is fishing. “That was one of my favorite things in the whole world to do,” she said. “I love to just throw that line out there and wait for a big one to bite the hook an then try to reel it in.

“It made me so happy to catch a big mess of fish and them take them home and clean an cook them up. The biggest fish I ever caught was a 21-pound buffalo.”

Her husband Buttons didn’t like for her to use his poles. “He would get so mad at me, but I didn’t care,” she said. “I did what I wanted to.” The day Lee caught the buffalo fish, Buttons was sleeping. “So I took them (the poles) and went down to the bluff, “ she said. “I wrestled with that thing and everyone was just laughing at me as I fought to get it out of the water.” She was afraid the pole would break, but that didn’t make her stop trying. “I finally got it in and then had to rest for a while because it tired me out,” she said. “I snuck back up to the house and put his pole down where he kept it. He never knew a thing.”

Finding religion

Lee has always stayed active in church. “The one thing I’m the most proud of in my life is joining the church,” she said. “I joined David’s Temple Missionary Baptist Church in 1931.” She recently won an award for being the oldest member.

She was also active in the choir. She served in the Number One Choir as the choir chaplain, president and treasurer. “Singing was real important to me,” she said. “My sisters and I had an a cappella singing group. We started it when I was about nine years old.” The group would travel to different churches in the area and even went to Nashville several times to sing. “We were called the Derrick Sisters,” she said. “We sang gospel and spiritual songs. We were pretty good if I do say so myself.”

Lee said she always laughs when she thinks about being a kid and playing church. “We would got out to the creek and sing, pray and preach,” she said. “We really thought we were something.

“We knew better than to be out there playing near the water, but we didn’t care. None of us could swim. Mama told us not to be out there, but where else are you going to baptize folks?”

Lee said one day they tried to baptize one of their little sisters. “She started choking and strangling and carrying on,” she said. “We knew we were going to get in trouble now. Mama was going to blister us good! We begged her not to say anything to Mama so that we wouldn’t get in trouble.

“She kept her mouth shut as far as I know, ‘cause Mama never came after me. We baptized a lot of kids down at that creek.”

Lula’s Mama

If there is one person Lee has truly admired in her lifetime, it has to be her mother Molly Derrick. “I loved her very much, still do, even though she’s gone,” she said. “She was hard on us, but she loved us.”

She had her hands full with 13 kids, Lee said, but she worked hard for people cleaning houses and cooking.

“She was a good Christian woman who would gather us together every night to read the Bible and pray,” Lee said. “My favorite song is ‘If I Could Only Hear My Mother Pray Again’ and I wish I really could.

“She was always helping out people who needed it, and we were right there alongside her. She taught me so much; how to cook, clean, sew and pray, but the most important thing she taught me was how to be a good woman.”

The nursing home

Lee has been at Athens Rehabilitation and Senior Care Center for more than three years. She said the nursing home wasn’t her first choice, but she knew it was a good choice. Buttons stayed with her at the center for a year before he passed away.

Today, she enjoys doing a lot of things. She spends her time playing dominoes, Flinch, Rook and other games. “I’ve even learned how to play some games on the Wii and the computer,” she said. “I never miss a Resident Council meeting or event and I always attend our month Looking Ahead meeting to help plan what we want to do in activities.”

Lee also helps with community outreach projects as well as civic organizations. “Going to church is real important to me, and if I can’t leave to go out, I go here,” she said. “I have made lots of friends here and my family comes to see me a lot. I spend my days doing whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it.”

Lee said she is a jokester. “I’ll give anybody a whippin’ if they need it,” she said. “I keep my fly flap close and ready to use. I can still get my foot up pretty high too, if I need to give somebody a good kick.”

Lee said it would be nice to win another crown one day. “I’d be a good queen simply ‘cause I am good,” she said. “I’m pretty sharp for 95 years old. My mind’s not crackin’ yet! I’m hot and sassy and everybody knows it.”