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Maurie Reeves is a daily visitor to the Oxford Senior Citizens Center on Main Street, driving himself to meet with new acquaintances and share experiences both past and present.

Reeves, who recently turned 95, defies his years as he recalls his life in Oxford, except for a short period of time working in Texas and two years of service in the military, serving in Germany for 19 months beginning in 1951.

Reeves said he was raised on a farm near Airport Road, an area once dotted with dairy farms. He attended Oxford Grammar School “and then moved up on the hill for high school.”

“When we were kids, we pitched horseshoes if we had any spare time,” he said. “Daddy kept us pretty busy raising the garden. When the watermelons and cantaloupes would come in, he would load the wagon up and park across from the grocery store. I’d come up with him on the weekend when he came up to sell them. We used to know just about everybody who lived from here down to Coldwater.”

After his military service, it was time to go to work.

“I rode an old motorcycle to get to Texas and didn’t even bring it back,” he said. “I had a cousin who also wanted to go, and we went to work in a pipe shop. They had trouble keeping people and would hire anybody. I only stayed a year before going to the Depot, making crates.”

 Reeves said he then entered a four-year apprenticeship program at the Depot, where “you went to school one week, then worked in the shops three weeks.”

He said one of the instructors for those classes was former Oxford Mayor Bester Adams Jr.

“I was working at the Depot in 1956, and there were 13 of us who had to transfer to Redstone to keep from getting laid off,” Reeves said. “We stayed up there about a year, but my wife wasn’t satisfied there, so I came back to the Depot and retired a few weeks short of having 36 years there. It was a pretty good job and helped raise a family of four.”

Reeves had two sons and two daughters, and he jokes about his daughters who live nearby trying to “see if they can get me to do what they want me to do.”

“I’ve been fortunate making it this long with no major problems,” Reeves said, noting he has resided on 8^th Street for the past 15 years.

He said the Oxford Senior Center has become “a second home” since his wife passed away.

“It has really helped me in my recovery after losing my wife,” Reeves said. “The crew that works here are the best they have ever had and will do anything they can to help.”