FOLEY, Ala. — Some of the joy at LiveOak Assisted Living Center is gone. Up until a few weeks ago, 101-year-old Edythe Louise Greer of Foley walked the halls to the tune of a mile or two a day — all 82 pounds of her.

Mrs. Greer died on April 3, leaving behind a void that will not soon be filled at LiveOak. Looking back, those who knew the woman whose life spanned 19 American presidents remember her for small but important things.

“We’re crushed. We adored her and she adored the staff,” said Donna Blankenship, Marketing director at LiveOak, this week.

“She was the joy of the place,” Blankenship said of the woman who was a resident of LiveOak for 13 years and one of the facility’s biggest cheerleaders.

According to Blankenship, if visitors to the LiveOak campus were checking out the facility as a possible residence, it was Mrs. Greer who typically stopped them in the hallway and told them how great the facility is; that she could be living anywhere she pleased, but LiveOak was the place she wanted to be.

“She was involved in everything,” Blankenship said.

Mrs. Greer went to devotions every morning at 9:15 a.m. and was a spirited singer of hymns. As late as this past February she was in a LiveOak play about Little Red Riding Hood and delivered her single line, “Arrest that wolf!”

Mrs. Greer was Queen of Senior Celebration one May and in the Senior Celebration Court every year. She enjoyed taking bus trips with LiveOak residents and staff, but Blankenship said the ride was the thing for Mrs. Greer. The woman never wanted to get off the bus once the destination was reached, so staff honored her wish and someone would stay on the bus with her.

In 2008 LiveOak celebrated Mrs. Greer’s 100th birthday by planting a flowering tulip tree on the facility’s grounds in her honor.

Mrs. Greer was born in Louisville, Ky., in 1908. Her son, Charlie Greer of Palm Coast, Fla., said his father was a dentist whose real love was farming. Nuby Greer eventually bought a farm near Selma where he planned on retiring.

“Mother was very supportive of that,” Charlie Greer said this week, even though that meant leaving behind her church and many associations.

The Greers eventually moved south of Foley. They were married for 57 years. Mrs. Greer’s husband preceded her in death.

An avid reader, porcelain painter, bridge player and world traveler, Charlie Greer recalls his mother being an “adventuresome spirit (who) stayed positive. I consider her longevity due to a number of things: genetics - her father died when he was 90 - and her total attitude about life - a very positive person.”

Mrs. Greer is also remembered by family and friends as a “very religious person.” She was christened a Lutheran and was a member of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Foley.

“She always treated people the way she expected to be treated,” Charlie Greer said of his mother.

Besides her son, Mrs. Greer is also survived by a daughter, Judy Braden of Pensacola, six grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.

She was laid to rest on Thursday at Pine Rest Memorial Park. A memorial for Mrs. Greer was held at LiveOak.

“She was a very important part of LiveOak,” Donna Blankenship said of Mrs. Greer, whose tree continues to flourish on the grounds she loved.