Betty Jewell has lived a century, and she has a simple prescription for anyone hoping to do the same: “Be loving, kind and forgiving.”
Family, friends and community members gathered recently at the Spartansburg Volunteer Fire Department social hall to celebrate Betty’s 100th birthday, honoring a woman whose life has been defined by service to others — from wartime government work to raising seven children while running a personal care home.
Betty was born March 7, 1926, in Sanderson, W.V., to Carl and Nellie Kennedy. The third of six children, she grew up in a four-room house in the hills of West Virginia. After graduation, she stayed home for a year to help her mother before eventually making her way to Augusta, Ga., where she worked for the government typing discharge papers for servicemen returning from World War II…