Frances at 102: Still crazy about Bo Duke and biscuits.

Frances loved John Schneider as Bo Duke.

I loved visiting my husband's grandmother Frances, who lived more than 100 years chasing fun and flavor, especially good-looking men and fresh biscuits.

The last time I saw her, the family was gathered for Mother's Day. Before eating we all caught up on the latest gossip, the most exciting of which was that her eldest granddaughter had a new man.

Frances, then 102, waited while we learned how they met and where he worked. Finally, in her sweet Virginia drawl, she asked,

"But is he good-looking?"

That was cool.

Frances' fondness for fun with good-looking men came early and never dimmed, despite her brothers trying to tame her in the years before she married.

 

"In her twenties, all she wanted to do was to go out drinking and dancing," explains her second daughter. "But her brothers wouldn't let her, so she sneaked out of the house. She was quite the party animal, and (in journals she kept at the time), she endlessly complained about them running her life."

 

Fifty years and four kids later, Frances turned to television for those good-looking men, developing a huge crush on John Schneider as Bo Duke from the show Dukes of Hazzard. And for her 100th birthday, one of her grandchildren gave her a large photo of a shirtless Schneider, posing during his Duke days.

Frances happily posed with the photo, her eyes flashing, then her thoughts turned to food.

"When are we eating?" she said. "Will we have biscuits?"

 

Three Abuelas: Frances, my husband, and my grandmother.