In a ceremony at the Ledgewood Manor nursing home Tuesday morning, Doris Wescott Tibbetts, 104, was given the Boston Post Cane for the oldest citizen of Windham.

Known more for her colorful outbursts than her longevity, Tibbetts’ skeptical response to receiving the cane was completely in character.

“How do you know I’m not made of formaldehyde?” she told cane presenter and Windham Town Clerk Linda Morrell. Her eyes are cloudy and she has trouble hearing, but her children say their mother shouldn’t be counted out yet.

“She knows a lot more than you think she does,” said son Leon Tibbetts, 71, of Gorham.

“I wish you’d stop hanging around those old men,” Doris Tibbetts told her retirement-age son, “You’re beginning to look like one.”

“I don’t think she’s ever been to a hospital, and I know she’s never been to a doctor,” said Leon Tibbetts. Her family said she birthed all nine of her children at home.

“She doesn’t trust doctors,” said her daughter Eleanor Darling, 75, of Windham. She said her mother had never been sick until she moved into the nursing home a year ago and caught pneumonia. She was put on medication for the first time and hooked up to a machine with an intravenous drip.

Her son Leon visited her and said she’d pulled out all the tubes and needles before he arrived and tried to hand them to him.

“It looked like she had a handful of night crawlers,” he said.

Doris Tibbetts said she owes her longevity to years of work and never drinking or smoking. She spent more than 50 years canning sardines in the Portland area.

“When she was in her 90s, she was out raking her lawn,” said daughter Janice Alfiero, 72, of Standish. She said her mother is still able to read without glasses.

Doris Wescott Tibbetts was born on June 9, 1903 and was the oldest of 10 children. She grew up on the family farm in Standish and graduated from Windham High School in 1921. Her grandfather was William Von Wescott, a captain in the Union Army during the Civil War.

The nine children she and her deceased husband Leon had together have given her 35 grandchildren, 62 great-grandchildren and 41 great, great-grandchildren.

“This family has got a screw loose,” she said, stirring laughter among her adult children.

History of the cane

In 1906, the Boston Post newspaper distributed 431 canes made of African ebony wood to New England towns. These canes had an inscription on their 14-carat gold heads that read:

“PRESENTED BY THE BOSTON POST to the OLDEST CITIZEN of” and was followed by the name of the individual town and state.

The publicity stunt has outlived the newspaper, which faded away in the 1950s. Windham Town Clerk Linda Morrell said most towns have lost their canes and Windham took actions to keep that from happening. A replica was made by Windham Millwork to give to the record holder. Morrell keeps the original in a glass case at the town hall.

The previous cane holder, Ethel Verrill, was given the cane in 2001. She died at the age of 106 on May 28 of this year.

Windham’s Doris Tibbets is presented by Town Clerk Linda Morrell with the Boston Post Cane for the oldest citizen in a small ceremony at the Ledgewood Manor nursing home on Tuesday.DorisTibbets1: Windham’s Doris Tibbets was presented the Boston Post Cane for the oldest citizen in a small ceremony at the Ledgewood Manor nursing home on Tuesday.DorisTibbets2: Windham’s Doris Tibbets and her high school diploma from 1921. She was presented the Boston Post Cane for the oldest citizen in a small ceremony at the Ledgewood Manor nursing home on Tuesday.DorisTibbets3-4: Windham’s Doris Tibbets is presented by Town Clerk Linda Morrell with the Boston Post Cane for the oldest citizen in a small ceremony at the Ledgewood Manor nursing home on Tuesday.DorisTibbets3-4: Windham’s Doris Tibbets is presented by Town Clerk Linda Morrell with the Boston Post Cane for the oldest citizen in a small ceremony at the Ledgewood Manor nursing home on Tuesday.