Nelle Mulligan turns 103
“It’s been a short life, and it’s really passing fast now. I am enjoying every minute of it.”

Nelle Horton Mulligan

— Nelle Horton Mulligan

By Rachel Haynie

Nelle Horton Mulligan is a genuine daughter of the Confederacy, one of few remaining in South Carolina. She has lived 103 years to tell the stories she remembers of her father, a veteran of the Confederacy, and the simple, value–laden life he created for his 12 children. Nelle was his baby.

Her chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy shared her birthday celebration this week with cake and punch. Chapter President Edie Purvis said although a few surprises were in the offing, chapter members agreed to keep the celebration simple, in part by bringing the party to Mulligan at Agape Senior Community on Trenholm Road.

Here is where Mulligan has resided the past seven years, where she watches TV sports, especially when Clemson teams are playing, in the comfort of her cheery, well–kept, apartment. Her daughter Nelle and son–in–law Ronald Beard, a retired Presbyterian minister, helped her decorate her tidy space for the holidays, using ornaments she has collected for years.

She recalls with great clarity anecdotes from her 30 years as a teacher, mostly in Richland One schools. “I taught at Hand (Middle School) for 13 years,” she said, rattling off names of a few students who occupied the desks in her classrooms. “Alex Sanders, Clif Judy, the Remberts,” and in time she asked if Miller Montgomery were still publishing The Star Reporter.

When she realized Miller Montgomery’s daughter was now the editor, and his son Warner the publisher, she pulled Mimi (Montgomery) Maddock’s name from her mental archive. Mulligan had read the community weekly at the Crestwood Drive home for many years, and remembered teaching the petite Montgomery when she was barely a teen.

Mulligan had already begun her career when she married, and she returned to Columbia from her Quebec honeymoon to face 107º temperatures. She and her husband set up housekeeping in a downtown hotel but soon persuaded Fitzhugh McMaster to let them have the apartment being created in his upstairs. “He told my husband the apartment wasn’t ready, wasn’t habitable. There was still a pile of sawdust in the middle of the floor. My husband told him he’d take it and that he’d clear the sawdust out.”

Little more than a year later when apartment living had run its course, the couple found the vacant lot John C.B. Smith owned on Crestwood and then found an architect. “At that time that was considered out from town,” recalled Mulligan who grew up on the open spaces her father’s 240–acre farm accommodated them in the York County town of Sharon.

Mulligan had been a teacher when she met her husband, earning $100 a month in those early years, and she returned to teaching after she lost her husband to cancer. “I was a substitute at Columbia High School briefly,” but not as briefly as her stint at an Olympia school. She also taught at Keenan High School for seven years, but her longest tenure was at Hand from which she retired in 1970. Her teaching years spanned three decades.

“I witnessed changes in education I never thought I’d see,” Mulligan revealed. “We had relationships with the parents in those days because they were from the neighborhood. We knew the students, too, by name in most cases.”

Students showed more respect for their teachers in Mulligan’s days at the head of the classroom. Smaller class sizes were not necessarily a thing of her past, though. “I had 44 ninth-grade boys one year, but they were no discipline problem to me,” said Mulligan, whose reputation was as a fair but tough teacher.

Mulligan maintained that reputation in the community and even at Agape Senior Community where she was elected to head the residents’ council almost as soon as she arrived there nearly seven years ago. She has served another term since.

Her longevity appears to be an element in her DNA. “My oldest sister lived to 102, and another to 101. My daddy lived to 82,” which Mulligan said is pretty amazing considering what his life was like, having been a prisoner of war twice. But she doesn’t remember her mother at all; she lost her when she was only a year and a half old. “Mama was only 42 when she died.”

The twelfth child in her family of origin was born in the twelfth month. With a birthday so close to Christmas, it’s no wonder Nelle Mulligan’s special day has attracted the attention of Santa Claus. She lives life as the gift it is.