Ninety-three-year-old Isabel Hall switches off her radio, which has been broadcasting a talk program.

On the arm of her chair in this modest sitting room is a navy blue lap robe she's knitting, a gift for her grandson in California. It's a few feet long, and she's been adding rounds onto it since June 28.

The lap robe is detailed and tightly woven, but Mrs. Hall can't see it.

A degenerative condition has been slowly stealing her eyesight since the 1970s and has left her almost completely blind. She says she can distinguish some colors, depending on the lighting, but for the most part she depends on her fingers to do her "seeing."

But being sightless hasn't stopped this nonagenarian from living a normal life.

Mrs. Hall has lived in Masury her entire life, and her mother raised two children alone after their father died.

"The Lord was with us," she says. "It wasn't an easy task."

Mrs. Hall graduated from Brookfield High School, where she played basketball. She says that while in school, she earned $10 a week gathering news bits for The Herald.

"We'd get the news and take it to Mr. Ramsey on the second floor and he'd pay us," she remembers.

She went on to work for Ohio Edison in Youngstown from 1929 to 1940, and she was the superintendent's secretary at Brookfield High School for 15 years. She remembers participating in luncheons with the ladies from Brookfield's firemen's auxilary and attending services at Masury United Methodist Church.

As she feels her way along the stitches of the lap robe to find the place she left off, her hands busily working the yarn on the needles, she reminisces about her husband Otto, who died 28 years ago, and dotes on her son, Bob, who still lives in Masury.

Many of Mrs. Hall's handmade creations adorn the furniture in her living room. She proudly shows off the yellow blanket with the multicolored edging and the maroon spread with ivory trim.

While in this part of her house, she makes her way to the piano and fills the room with renditions of "How Great Thou Art" and "Let Me Call You Sweetheart," before moving to the organ to play "Sweet Georgia Brown." She learned to play both instruments by ear, she says.

As for her condition, Mrs. Hall said she never felt sorry about it.

"I figured maybe someone else wouldn't have been able to take it," she says.

Mrs. Hall still makes food for herself, entertains herself by watching Lawrence Welk or listening to talking books and keeps in contact with her 91-year-old friend.

When asked if she thinks she's blessed, Mrs. Hall says she has never given it much consideration.

"I guess I am, I've just never thought about it," she says, adding that people should live their lives one day at a time.

"When it's our time to go, we go," she says. "I think it's your attitude. What will be will be, there's no use worrying about it."