4th of July Parade Grand Marshall’s
Dorothy Kindred is currently Metcalfe County’s oldest resident.
Dorothy was born on February 1, 1925, in Detroit, Michigan, to immigrant parents from Greece and Czechoslovakia. Her father was a chef, and her mother was a homemaker. Dorothy had eight brothers and sisters who have all passed.
In 1951, she married George Lee Kindred, and they were married until his death in 1989. Together, they raised three children, Bill, Rick, and Kathy. Dorothy and George lived on a small farm in Pickney, Michigan. Pinckney is about the same size as Edmonton, and they are similar in many ways. The people who work locally are mainly farmers. Bill married Teresa Bell in 1980 and has lived in Metcalfe County since 1981.
After Dorothy’s husband George passed, she began to write poems. The first was written about how much she loved and missed her husband. She soon discovered she had a talent for writing poetry and, to date, has written over two hundred poems. She has written poems to President Donald Trump and received a personally written note of appreciation. She also shared poems with the late Coach John Wooton. She continues to write poems today.
Dorothy turned 101 years old in 2026. She moved to Metcalfe County last November and lives with her son, Bill, and his wife, Teresa. Dorothy’s mind is extremely sharp, and she is in reasonably good health. She does her own cooking, cleaning, and laundry. Dorothy loves living in Kentucky with the rolling farmland and friendly people.
She often says, “God must have something in mind for me to keep me around for so long.”
Floyd B. Fields is Metcalfe County’s oldest veteran.
Floyd was born in Metcalfe County, Kentucky, on July 10, 1933, but he grew up in and around Columbus, Indiana, where he met his sweetheart, Mayfair Smith. The two married in October of 1953.
He joined the United States Air Force on March 25, 1953, and shortly thereafter was deployed to Japan at the end of the Korean War, qualifying him as a Korean War veteran.
After returning from Japan and completing his four-year tour in the spring of 1957 at McDill Air Force Base in Tampa, FL, he moved back to Indiana, where he entered civilian life as a line worker at the Hamilton Cosco factory in Columbus, IN.
In 1966, he joined the Air Force Reserve and left Hamiltons to become a civil service employee working at the same job during the week as a civilian that he did as a reservist on the weekends and two weeks out of the year. (Aircraft Sheetmetal Mechanic).
Two years later, in 1968, his reserve unit was called to active duty and was deployed to the Nha Trang Airbase in Vietnam, where he spent the next six months. Shortly after arriving, the Vietcong started firing rockets onto the base at night, while he and his buddies were in a tent watching a movie. He talks about how quickly they all competed for the lowest spot on the floor. Fortunately, no one was injured during several episodes of shelling.
After returning from Vietnam, the base at Columbus was decommissioned, and the members were offered a choice of moving to Louisiana or to Kokomo, IN, at Grissom Air Force Base. He and his wife chose Kokomo, where he continued to serve in the reserves for the next 27 years and retired with a combined active and reserve service of 32 years, and he obtained the rank of Senior Master Sergeant.
After retiring, they returned to Metcalfe County, where they remained until her passing in 2020 after 67 years of marriage. They had two children, Floyd Dean and Rena Mae, who passed away in 1990. Floyd remained in Metcalfe County and lives with his son, Floyd Dean, and his wife, Pam, and has his own efficiency apartment and remains independent at age 92.
