{"id":462847,"date":"2026-09-13T22:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T22:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/462847\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T22:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T22:08:12","slug":"101-year-old-leaves-oakland-county-with-a-legacy-of-kindness-the-oakland-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/462847\/","title":{"rendered":"101-year-old leaves Oakland County with a legacy of kindness \u2013 The Oakland Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mallory Walligora, For The Oakland Press<\/p>\n

Virginia Greer has spent 101 years in Oakland County.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Sept. 12, family, friends and neighbors gathered at Lakepoint Community Church in Oxford for a going-away party in her honor. Greer is moving to Crossville, Tenn., to live with her daughter, Patt.<\/p>\n

For those who gathered to celebrate, Greer\u2019s age alone is remarkable. But what she has done with those 101 years is even more so.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll be hard-pressed to find someone who is 101 years old to begin with, but also someone who has lived in Oakland County her whole life,\u201d said Dennis Korby, a friend. \u201cWe\u2019re celebrating a woman\u2019s wonderful life and her legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three years ago, Greer started a knitting and crocheting group. Since the group\u2019s inception, she and a handful of other members have made more than 800 sets of hats, gloves and scarves for children in Metro Detroit.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s still doing that. What a wonderful legacy,\u201d Korby said.<\/p>\n

\"AttendeesAttendees enjoyed cake during Virginia Greer’s going away party on Saturday, Sept. 12. (Mallory Waligora, For The Oakland Press)<\/p>\n

Even a serious injury didn\u2019t stop Greer. After she fell and injured her elbow, eventually having it replaced, knitting became much more difficult. Greer found a way to work around the injury by resting her elbow on a chair while she knitted.<\/p>\n

When her friend Ruth Holt called after her fall, Greer remained upbeat.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe fell years ago, and when I called she said, \u2018I fell, and I\u2019ve destroyed my elbow. The good thing is it\u2019s my left elbow, and I\u2019m right-handed,\u2019\u201d Ruth Holt said.<\/p>\n

That attitude\u2014staying positive and kind despite setbacks\u2014is something friends and family repeatedly noted when describing Greer.<\/p>\n

Greer was born March 21, 1925. She met her husband, Richard, at church and the pair married shortly before World War II. Richard served in the Army in Germany during the war. Together, they lived in Waterford and had three children: David, Patt and Jerry. Richard died in 2004.<\/p>\n

Greer also hasn\u2019t been afraid to embrace new technology, even as she grew older. She stays connected online through texting, phone calls and even Facebook, proof that her willingness to learn has never been limited by her age.<\/p>\n

\"VirginiaVirginia Greer sits with her family during a going away party for her on Saturday, Sept. 12. (Mallory Waligora, For The Oakland Press)<\/p>\n

Jessie Holt has been Greer\u2019s pastor for the past five years. He began serving as a senior pastor at Lakepoint in January 2020, right before the COVID-19 pandemic changed how churches\u2014and the world\u2014operated. When in-person services resumed, church leaders faced the challenge of drawing people back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Well, I understand why we want to do that, and I would love to have everybody back to church,\u2019\u201d Jessie Holt said.<\/p>\n

But it was Greer\u2019s story that stuck with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is someone that you may not all know as leaders, who every Sunday actually learned how to turn on her television and learned how to put the livestream on her TV, and she is 101 years old. Every single Sunday, without fail, she is watching our live stream service,\u201d Jessie Holt said.<\/p>\n

Lakepoint continues to live stream its services and Greer continues to watch. Friends also noted her two simple pleasures: bingo and chocolate. Multiple people mentioned that her binder of old bingo cards is nearly six inches thick.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is Michigan\u2019s number one lover of Bingo,\u201d Korby said.<\/p>\n

But for those closest to her, however, Greer\u2019s greatest legacy isn\u2019t the hundreds of items she\u2019s knitted, her hefty collection of bingo cards or her longevity. It\u2019s the way she makes people feel. Ruth Holt recalled asking Greer how she has maintained such a positive attitude. Her answer was simple.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I told God if I was going to be an old lady, I wasn\u2019t going to be a crabby old lady,\u201d Ruth Holt recalled as her answer.<\/p>\n

That simple lesson of a positive attitude has stayed with the people around her.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe taught me a lesson. It\u2019s not always what you say to people. It\u2019s how they feel after you run into them, and that was Virginia. Always smiling, always positive. She gave us all hope,\u201d Korby said. \u201cShe\u2019s leaving behind a legacy. A loving legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Mallory Walligora, For The Oakland Press Virginia Greer has spent 101 years in Oakland County. On Saturday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[181,23,795,143,904,145,144,903],"class_list":["post-462847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-michigan","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-county","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-oxford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}