Still sharp, still witty, still stylish, 108-year-old Edith Coleman straightens her blouse while pausing to reflect on a question she gets a lot these days.

“What’s my secret?” she echoes. “Well, I guess I took good care of myself and didn’t know it.”

Laughter erupts inside her Schererville townhouse where family members and friends help her get by.

“Everybody asks me my secret,” the former teacher and longtime public servant says. “Oh, I could tell you but I’d have to charge you.”

In all seriousness, she adds, “I don’t think I’m that extraordinary.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are some 101,000 Americans age 100 or over today. That number is expected to reach 422,000 by 2054.

But family members say, in addition to her longevity, it has been Coleman’s dedication to her community and to her fellow human beings that makes her special.

Much of the Northwest Indiana community would agree.

“She’s amazing,” said second-cousin Mark Patterson. “She’s done a lot in her lifetime.”

Coleman was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, on Feb. 13, 1917. She was 14 years old when her mother died, leaving she and her siblings orphaned.

Coleman and a younger brother were sent to live with relatives in Kansas. Meanwhile, an older brother moved to Chicago.

It was during a visit to Chicago that Coleman met a man from Gary who would become her husband and introduce her to a whole new world.

“We seemed to have the same characteristics. Both of us were serious. We weren’t worldly. And we both loved the Lord,” she said.

She and William “Henry” Coleman were wed in 1940.

Back then, Gary was a thriving steel town, offering high wages at the mills and proximity to culturally rich and bustling Chicago, she said.

“There was money in Gary,” Coleman said. “People came from all over to live there.”

Henry Coleman and his brother-in-law ran El Frio, one of the largest Black-owned beverage companies in the country.

After more than two decades as a private businessman, Coleman went to work for Gary’s first Black mayor, Richard Hatcher, as campaign manager and then city controller.

In their early years, Coleman stayed home while the couple’s two daughters, Norma and Merle, were young.

Once her children were older, Coleman put her Indiana University degree to work and began teaching in the Gary school system.

She taught second and third grade at Douglas Elementary School for 27 years.

“It was a wonderful school system,” she said. “It was known all over the country.”

The Gary Plan, designed by William Wirt, embraced academics and art, physical education and industrial arts in a system often referred to as “work-study-play” or “platoon-style” learning.

“A lot of those kids went on to be very successful,” Coleman said.

A devoted member of the First Church of God in Gary, Coleman volunteered for missionary work, served as a deaconess and taught Sunday school.

“My husband and I were just ordinary people who believed in public service,” she said.

They also were big travelers, visiting many countries in Europe as well as Jamaica.

Though she never played a musical instrument, Coleman channeled her family’s longtime love for music into more volunteer work, serving for 18 years on the board of the Northwest Indiana Symphony. To this day, she cherishes the memory of the performance at which the orchestra opened by thanking her for her service.

She also supported the Gary YWCA and was active in the American Association of University Women. When the AAUW formed a gourmet cooking club, she traveled to other members’ homes to sample ethnic cuisine.

“We had Polish food and Russian food. And there was a member from Sweden,” she recalled.

Which was her culinary favorite? “My own, of course,” she said, chuckling.

The Colemans had been married for 47 years when he passed in 1987. Their daughters, too, are both gone. Merle, a U.S. Navy recruiter, died in 2012, and Norma, a teacher, died in 2015.

“That’s the hardest thing about living so long,” Coleman said. “Everyone from my mother’s family is dead. All my first cousins, aunts, uncles, children are dead.”

Today, her second cousins help care for her.

“They are so good to me,” she said.

One of those relatives, Paul Patterson, said, “She’s absolutely amazing. She has so much history. She’s witnessed so much during her lifetime. And she was so involved in her community. I’m so proud of her. She’s still up on current events, too. She watches the news all the time. It’s very impressive.”

All her life, Coleman said, she strived to be inclusive, even as the country struggled through segregation, civil rights legislation and, now, political divisiveness.

“We didn’t grow up with hatred in our hearts,” she said. “Even in Oklahoma, our community was made up of all kinds of people of different ethnicities. We tried not to judge.”

Her grandmother was 8 years old when slavery ended in America.

“She talked about it. We knew the boundaries and we knew what to expect,” Coleman said.

“I went to an all-Black school. We had our own churches and restaurants,” she said. “Of course, it hurt to know that people would look at you and see Black and think you were different or inferior to them. But we still tried to bring people together.”

If she has a message for the world today, it is to abide by the golden rule.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” she said.

Embracing that mantra has served her well. Over the years, she said, she has had friends from all walks of life.

“I guess I just tried to live a healthy, Christian life,” she said. “And I liked being busy.”

Other than a bit of hearing loss and a slight limp in her walk, Coleman said, she is doing well for a centenarian-plus.

She had a serious fall in January, after which she spent some time in rehab. While there, people kept asking about her age.

She chuckles, saying she doesn’t mind.

But tell her she looks wonderful, and she smiles broadly and quips, “You know what they say, ‘Tell the truth.’”

Donna Vickroy is an award-winning reporter, editor and columnist.

donnavickroy4@gmail.com