Her physical capability may be limited by age, but Nora Latty maintains a sharp mind.

The centenarian, who celebrated her birthday on August 26, believes her daily reading has bolstered her mental capacity over the years.

“I do plenty reading. Every morning mi get up mi read mi manna book (a religious book) and say mi prayers,” the 101-year-old said.

Devotion is concluded with her reading from the book Poems of Dawn.

“Mi do it because it is a duty,” Latty explained. “Religion is a good thing, you know. When you are religious, you have you manna book and you read your other book, and in the morning you get up and you say your prayers before you go to school, but you don’t make it too long, you know… because you have to go to school and there is plenty little things to be done.”

Pointing out that “mi a old woman now, enuh”, Latty said she is unable to attend church as she would like. In light of this, she follows a strict devotion routine.

So great is her love for reading, the mother of seven used it as a tool to bond with, and empower her children, her eldest daughter and caregiver, 70-year-old Vinette Latty-Rowe told the Jamaica Observer.

“Three of us don’t see well — me, Nilla and Jeffery,” Latty-Rowe said of herself and her siblings. “Wi see, but wi nuh see as good as you, so what wi mother would do is she would sit us down for hours and read to us and I think that helped to make us stronger.”

When she wasn’t reading, Latty, described as a hard worker, spent hours walking through the communities of Crofts Hill and Rhoden Hall in Clarendon selling clothes, sheets and trimmings for sewing.

She was also a dressmaker, market vendor, farmer and retailer who would make her family’s clothes, sell produce in the Kellits and Crofts Hill markets and assist in managing the farm.

“Time was hard, you know, time nuh stay like now,” the centenarian stressed. “Sometimes when the time come you don’t even have what to send the children them to school, but by the help of God we managed.”

The difficulties were underscored by the fact that her husband, a farmer and tailor, migrated to England for work. This forced her to take charge of farm operations.

“I think the hardest part on the farm was the sugar cane because you have to get it cut, put it out the road, cook pan a food for the workers and she was active in all of this for many years,” Latty-Rowe noted.

The centenarian also grew yam, banana, potato, and plantain on the family’s five-acre farm.

As she sat reminiscing of the old days, Latty lamented the spate of crime and violence in Jamaica.

“Mi consider say Jamaica gone down instead of a go up. The people dem get wicked now,” she stressed as she bulged her eyes. “[Back then] if is night and you want anything on the road you go and you buy and you come back and yuh quite alright, but now if yu form fool, before yuh talk good dem lick yuh down.”

The centenarian also spoke to heterosexual relationships in her day and now, and encouraged that couples go back to basics.

Making reference to the relationship with her late husband, Latty said, “ e work well because we never hog and pig wi one another like how some wife and husband do now. We try to grow the children dem good mek them know what is right and what is wrong.”