----Source: The Merrill Daily Herald, 12 April 1937:

Observes Her 85th Birthday

MRS. SARAH WILLIAMS, 702 East Sixth st., today was receiving the congratulations of her many friends and relatives on the eighty-fifth anniversary of her birth.

More spry and active than many woman years her junior, she aptly describes herself as being "85 years young." In a recent interview she said, "I have never been sick a day in the past 73 years," and when asked if she had followed the maxim of eating an apple a day to keep the doctor away, she disclosed that her recipe for good health was hard work and care in eating.

Mrs. Williams, nee Elizabeth Pratt, was born in the Finger Lake region of upper New York State, at Genoa, Cayuga County, on April 12, 1852. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Tully Pratt, were of the country's pioneer stock, having themselves been born in New York State.

Young Elizabeth, or Sarah as she has always been called, attended school in New York State, part of the time at Ithaca, seat of Cornell University. When she was twelve years old she was stricken with scarlet fever and her hearing was impaired.

Her hearing has bothered her again recently but she get along nicely using an ear phone. Her eyes are as keen as ever and one of her hobbies is crocheting. Using a fine crochet hook she has fashioned many beautiful doilies and tidies.

Mrs. Williams left New York in 1868 and came to live at Neillsville, Wisconsin, then a region of virgin forests and scattered farms. Here, on October 30, 1870, she was married to John H. Hoover, a native of Wayne County, Pennsylvania, and a veteran of the Civil War who had been wounded in action.

The young couple moved to a farm at Lynn, three miles west of Marshfield, and here they lived for 31 years until, Mr. Hoover's health failing, they went to live at Soldiers' Home, Waupaca. Mr. Hoover died at the Home, January 3, 1924, and was buried in the Merrill cemetery.

Mrs. Williams married again in 1925. Her second husband, Levi Williams, Oshkosh, died in 1932.

Reading and automobile riding are the two things that Mrs. Williams enjoys most. Recently after completing an all-day auto trip of several hundred miles she was ready to start off again the next morning. The Merrill Daily Herald is her favorite newspaper and she reads it thoroughly every day.

She takes great pleasure in the visits of her relatives, many of whom live in Merrill. A daughter, Mrs. Chris Severt, is a resident of this city and a son, Joe Hoover, lives in Wausau.

There are seven grandchildren, Police Officer George Severt, John Severt and Mrs. Arthur Neubauer, Merrill; Ray Severt, Milwaukee; Mrs. Pat Savasky, Rockford, Ill.; Mrs. Wilford Tucker, Wausau; and Miss Dorathy Hoover, Wausau.

The great grandchildren, and there are 18, range in age from Ellen Ruth Severt, 4, to Dorathy Severt, 18, whose birthday is also April 12. The great grandchildren are Karl and Ellen Ruth Severt, children of George Severt; Dorathy, Helen, Gail, Jackie and Donald Severt, children of John Severt; Joseph, Philip, Mary Lou and Jeanne Alice Neubauer, children of Mrs.. Arthur Neubauer; Betty, Bobby, and Jimmie Severt, children of Ray Severt; Gordon and Audrey Savasky, children of Mrs.. Pat Savasky; and Donald and Joan Tucker, children of Mrs. Wilford Tucker."