On September 29, 1679, a man by the name of Jaspar Danckaerts visited a farm in Gowanus, Long Island. He recorded in his journal, “This place belongs to the oldest European woman in the country. We went immediately into her house, where she lived with her children. We found her sitting by the fire, smoking tobacco incessantly, one pipe after another. We inquired after her age, which the children told us was an hundred years. She was from Liège [Belgium] and still spoke good Wals [Waloon French]…She had been about fifty years now in the country, and had above seventy children and grandchildren. She saw the third generation after her.”

In a time when life expectancy was in the 40s, here was a chain-smoking little old immigrant lady enjoying her great-grandchildren on the peaceful farm she had helped cut from the wilderness. And enjoying the title, “oldest European woman in the country”. I guess early New Netherland was built on tobacco.

History is full of shifts of culture. Our testimony should be one of a cultural shift within our own lives. Let’s keep shifting in the godly direction.

By the way, the “oldest European woman in America” was the widow of one of Anita’s direct ancestors. I’ll bet Anita outlives me.