Over the years it has become a family custom to visit Mrs. Writa Johnston at Christmastime. We looked forward to the delight she displayed in fixing a cup of tea and insisting we nibble on some of her delicacies.

A few months ago Mrs. Johnston moved from her neat Morgan's Road residence, where she lived alone, to Lefroy House at Ireland Island.

In the friendliest manner, the first words I uttered were: "So soon you will be celebrating another birthday."

She snapped back: "Now, you don't have to rub it in."

We were referring to the fact that in a couple weeks' time she will be 102 years old. We call Mrs. Johnson 'Bermuda's survivor extraordinary', not just because she has reached her ripe old age, with more agility and higher spirits than some folk in their 40s and 50s. But rather because of an event more than 80 years ago.

She was a young bride then, on her honeymoon trip from New York to her native Bermuda, when she and her young American husband were rescued from the Furness Bermuda Line ship Fort Victoria just before it sank on the high seas. The liner was rammed in a fog storm by another ship, the Algonquin. Those were the days before the invention of radar and other measures put into place to cut down on such nautical disasters.

During the early years of the 20th century wealthy Americans, who considered Bermuda their playground, went to great lengths to secure the services of bright young Bermudians because of their charm and to work in their homes and enterprises.

Writa became the envy of her peers, who considered her lucky when she took advantage of such an opportunity at age 16 to go to Newport, Rhode Island, to be a mother's helper.

In her early 20s she met and married a Rhode Islander, Al Burton. Their intention was to spend Christmas in Bermuda in 1929, and to meet her family for the first time.

They travelled to New York burdened with their Yuletide goodies and boarded the Fort Victoria on December 19. It was the liner's last voyage before the holiday season, and it too was loaded with much anticipated cargo that ended up on the ocean's floor. Luckily, all of the passengers escaped unhurt, with only the clothes they were wearing.

The honeymooners were taken back to New York and returned to their homes in Rhode Island. It was a year or two before they eventually got to Bermuda as a couple.

Twice widowed and childless, Writa eventually made New York and the influential Bermuda Benevolent Association, Inc., the focal points of her busy life.

Born in Paget, near the Horizon Hotel, on February 12, 1906, she was the eldest of the ten children of Arthur and Bertha Knight. Her father, who lived to be 103 years old, was a pilot at Dockyard and one of the founders of the Somerset Brigade Band. Eventually, the Knight family moved to a home he built in Somerset.

Twenty years ago Mrs. Johnson decided to escape the rat race of New York and its bitter winters and returned to her native land to settle down. She is a very independent woman, friendly and frank. She lived alone, entertained visits from many friends and family who adore her, and keeps fully abreast of current events in Bermuda, New York and Baltimore.

Through New York she's in communication with Mrs. Ivy Simons, the first woman president of the now dissolved, 100-plus-year-old Bermuda Benevolent Association, Inc., and in Baltimore where her friend Pamela Smith Davis, formerly of Somerset, and her daughter Michelle Smith Billup reside. She is Michelle's godmother.

Mrs. Johnston has only one surviving sibling, brother Harold Knight. For many years Harold and his wife Amy owned and operated a motor lunch counter in Pembroke and Devonshire. Upon retiring, they moved to Virginia where a daughter has a home and family.