There aren’t many who have lived in Gloucester Point for a while who have not heard the name Thelma Belvin. At the age of 99, she’s still going strong and reminisces often about how things used to be in the county she has called home for more than seven decades.

Belvin will celebrate her 100th birthday on March 14, surrounded by her family and friends.

Some arthritis and a hip she fractured about 20 years ago are about the only things hampering Belvin her doing the things she enjoys, which include several weekly trips to Grafton to play Bingo, cooking, needlework and caring for others.

When she re-injured that same hip three years ago, she started using a walker to move about and turned over most of the cooking to her daughter, Barbara Dunston, who spends nights with her mom. “Now, my daughter does the cooking, and I hate she has to do it. I miss it,” Belvin said.

The family still gathers at the home Belvin and her late husband Jimmy built in 1941. After h...