"I was born in 1907 in Eastern Kansas, in St. Paul," she said. "My dad was a farmer, and my mother died before I was old enough to see her. I was the youngest of five sisters and four brothers. My father was a wonderful man.

"The rest of my family was tall," the petite Hall added, smiling. "I was the only wart."

One of her fondest memories of growing up is that of the May crowning of Mary, a woman to whom Hall has turned again and again throughout her life.

"I had to go up these steps to crown the Blessed Virgin," Hall said. "I was so scared of those steps. I’ll never forget it.

"That poor lady has had to get me out of a lot of things," she added with her familiar smile. "I’ve had every kind of thing poked at me in this life, and I’ve always turned to the Blessed Virgin."

Her flair for the arts (she’s also an accomplished painter) began early, when Hall found herself being offered the lead in nearly every school play. Her most beloved medium, writing, was born with the advent of World War I, when her brother marched off to Europe. There he befriended a French family with a daughter Hall’s age. The two girls began writing, and by war’s end, they had sent dozens of letters back and forth.

In 1953, Hall, married with seven daughters, pulled up roots from her Eastern Kansas home and moved west, where her husband – a builder — was to help construct a new school, St. Mary of the Plains College. In fact, she adds with pride, his hands nailed the nails and poured the mortar that built the Manor in which she now lives.

Her husband died in 1980, and many of her beloved daughters ("I never had any trouble with any of them," she says proudly) moved out of state. One of her daughters, Peggy McElgunn, and her family, still live in Dodge City.

Among those things that remained constant in Hall’s life is her love for poetry and for the Church.

A Dodge City parishioner for more than half a century, Hall recalls a family that often sat in front of her in Mass, and how, over the years from her pew, she watched their well-behaved sons go from toddlers to grown men, all in the blink of an eye.

"I felt like they were part of my family," she said. Today, one of those sons, Father Wesley Schawe, is parochial vicar of the cathedral, and, along with Father Ted Skalsky, celebrates Mass at the Manor.

While the joy of Hall is her fountain-of-youth zeal, her sadness is her stilled pen. A box under a lamp table in her room contains a wealth of her poems, which she opens, revealing on top the poem used in this article. Her daughter has suggested that she may publish the collection in book form. Meanwhile, with a little prodding, the SKR is hoping she might save a few for its pages.

"What inspires me?" she asks. "It just comes to you, and I have to write it down."

Though her pen is silenced and her bones brittle, Hall yearns to do something – anything to continue to make a difference.

"I’m very fortunate that the Lord let’s me get around as much as I do," she said, motioning to her walker, which she named Suzi ("It lives with me; I might as well give it a name!"). "But I would like to be able to do something for the Church. I ask God, and He doesn’t tell me!

She added, "If I’m sad, it does no good. But if I’m a little crazy, then people laugh with me."

And referring to her poetry, she said, "I feel like if I’ve done anything good for even one person, then I think I’ve done something."