Somewhere in Esmee Lovell Burrows' house there is a beeping. It starts softly and then gets louder and more insistent.

Her daughter Correne Dummett, 70, goes away to hunt for the noise.

Mrs. Burrows is 103-years-old and the beeping is a good reminder of how much change she has lived through.

When she was born on June 13, 1906, there were no clock radios to be wrongly timed. Bermudians still used horse and carriages, pedal bikes or feet to transport themselves. Very few Bermudians had electricity, indoor plumbing or telephones.

But when The Royal Gazette reporter Jessie Moniz met up with Mrs. Burrows and her daughter, Correne Dummett, 70, she seemed oblivious to the maelstrom of change she'd lived through.

She said when she was growing up, her Southampton community definitely subscribed to the "it takes a village to raise a child" philosophy.

"One thing about those days, if you went to school and you did something you shouldn't have done, and someone saw, they would tell your mother, and she would give licks."

Mrs. Burrow's mother, Martha Lovell was very strict, never giving an order twice.

"My mother kept me right straight," she said. "She was so strict with me I expect I might live to be 200. I was never as strict when I was raising my own children."

Her daughter Mrs. Dummett, disagreed. "You don't think you were strict, but you were strict," said Mrs. Dummett.

"I was never as strict as my mother though," said Mrs. Burrows.

Martha Lovell had to keep a tight reign on her children as she had six including Eleanor, Sadie, Clarence, Cecil and Ivira.

In 1922, Martha and William Lovell, moved their family to New York.

They travelled to the United States on the S.S.Bermudian. The steamship first made an appearance the year before Mrs. Burrows was born and continued service from Bermuda to the United States until the First World War.

"Boats in those days used to do some rocking and rolling," Mrs. Burrows said. "And it would take you three or four days to get there. I don't think I got seasick. My sister Sadie got seasick.

"My mother's folks all went to America so she wanted to go up there to be near where they were. My mother and the three girls went first. After we were there for six months, my father came up with the three boys. We stayed up there for years."

Her maternal grandmother, Eleanor Scott, had 28 children, although not all of them lived.

"She had four sets of twins," said Mrs. Burrows. "But none of the twins lived."

The Lovell family eventually settled in Patterson, New Jersey. At the age of 16, Mrs. Burrows went to work in an embroidery factory.

"It wasn't hard, it was nice," she said. "We used to do all kinds of things. We would make things for people who were getting married. They might want a set (of sheets) or something and we would do it up for them.

"I probably gave my parents my wages. You didn't get much in those days. We made about $12 a week. We were paid by the piece, so sometimes if you were fast you could make more money."

At the age of 20 she returned home to attend her cousin's wedding and never returned to the United States.

"It was hard adjusting to life in Bermuda," she said. "Bermuda was primitive back then. They were still using horse and buggies, and there were cars back in New Jersey."

But it wasn't all hardship. She became reacquainted with a childhood friend, Reginald Burrows Sr. The couple married, and stayed married for almost 70 years until Mr. Burrows died in the 1990s.

They both attended Tucker's School, a one-room school house across from what is now White's Supermarket in Warwick. Two or three teachers taught around 80-children.

Reginald Burrows Sr. was a plumber, as was his father.

"For that reason we were one of the few families around with indoor plumbing," she said. "In those days it was mainly the wealthy people who had indoor plumbing. And you were always on-call for them."

Partly for this reason, they were one of the first in their neighbourhood to have a telephone installed in their house.

Mrs. Burrows remembers both the First and Second World War.

"John Smith and Willie Parker went over during the First World War" she said. "I had a friend named Adrian Wilmott. He was from Warwick. That bird could sing. He went over to France and sang for the troops. He had a beautiful voice."

Her husband never liked to dance, but she loved dancing before she got married. "Those old-timers use to really love to dance," she said.

Her daughter Mrs. Dummett said there use to be a place called Raynor's Hall and another called Top Hat where people from her mother's generation liked to kick up their heels.

"That was the place where everyone used to go," said Mrs. Dummett. "They would have movies there at night and socials. Top Hat was near the property where the Bermuda Institute is now. They played movies there also."

During the Second World War, the Burrows family took in boarders."Some of the boarders were people who were here building the base," said her daughter Mrs. Dummett. "There wasn't enough housing for all the military personnel here.

"We sometimes had three or four people at a time."

"They became friends," said Mrs. Burrows. "They were Americans."

During the war Bermudians were required to blackout their windows, just as they were in England.

When Mrs. Burrows was growing up, there was mostly only electricity in Hamilton.

"Years ago people use to have bazaars a lot," she said. "There were no lights on the streets. Hamilton was the only place with lights.

"Always the boys would come down in a bunch and meet us. You always had to carry a light, unless there was moonlight. I remember getting electricity in our houses. It was a big deal for us because we were so used to oil lamps. They were putting up street lights when I was expecting my oldest, Reginald Jr."

(Reginald Burrows Jr. is today a well-known Progressive Labour Party Member of Parliament.)

Mrs. Dummett said: "When they first had electricity they had cords everywhere. Then when they built the houses over or built new houses then they put the wiring in the walls."

Physically, Bermuda itself has changed a lot since 1906 and Mrs. Dummett said her mother has often expressed surprise at the dense vegetation on the Island today.

"When I was a girl there weren't so many trees," said Mrs. Burrows. "We had cedars. When the cedars died out, the Island was bare.

"Before we had a lovely lot of cedars. They use to cut down cedars for Christmas trees and coffins, all sorts of stuff. Almost everybody had them. Sometimes when you fixed up your yard you had to take some down."

Although Mrs. Burrows can no longer see, she has enjoyed near perfect health. "I don't know what we did when people got sick when I was young," said Mrs. Burrows. "I never got sick. If anyone got sick usually the doctor would come to the house. But often the old-timers had something to give you, even if it was just Castor oil."

When asked how she had lived so long, Mrs. Burrows said simply: "Good living."