Adam Vital, 96 of Welsh lives a stone’s throw away from the old house he and his family once called home.

Recently, he celebrated his 96th birthday.

“They all came.  The sister over there, they all came for my birthday,” Vital said.

Adam respects the fact he’s lived a long life.

He comes from a family who lives in faith.

“I’m feeling pretty good but with all the trouble with my age I can expect everything to happen.  I’m not a young man no more.  I’m an old man.  Right now, I’m hitting right across 100 years of age.”

Adam made his living in farming.

He followed in his father’s footsteps.

His father was a farmer and his mother had a knack for canning food.

“I never did work any construction job.  Most of my jobs were farm work.”

He says farm work was hard work and labor intense.

“We used to plant rice with drills.  You know with drills with old time drills,” Vital explained.

Adam had eight siblings.

His sister wants it known that all her children are Southern University graduates.

‘We’re the only two that’s living.”

Adam had one son who is no longer with him in body but is with him in spirit.

He explains there was no pharmacy in Welsh when he was growing up.

A person would come to town to sell medicine.

Other than that people had to fend for themselves.

“People would go into the woods and get all kinds of medicine.  They didn’t have no drug store,” he added.

“I had a tree right next to that old house.  It was called a Sassafras Tree. You heard about that?  It’s like medicine and we would boil it,” Vital noted.

Between work and life’s ups and downs, Adam managed to live to be 96.

He has learned there maybe some truth in the old saying ‘hard work pays off.’

“I love farm work. I guess that’s why I’m living so long.”