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She sang "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" to me over the telephone, in a voice as Southern as red-eye gravy over grits.

It was the same voice that had captivated me 13 years ago when she called me in Mobile, Ala., to sing the praises of her hometown, Whitsett, population 700.

That began a telephone relationship with Patsy Boone that lasted several years and a number of columns. I found in her a remarkable woman who lived with her sister, Annie Ruth, in the two-story house built by their father on N.C. 61, the road that connects Whitsett with Interstate 85 on the south and Gibsonville on the north.

Patsy's speech took me back to my boyhood in the rural South, when women would gather on one another's back porches to shell beans or peel peaches or cut up tomatoes for canning, and exchange gossip and editorial comments about the world they knew.

Patsy shared with me a lot of her world.

Her Whitsett was an idyllic little village where you could buy Duke's Mayonnaise and slather it on a fresh ripe tomato sliced onto a hot biscuit and go to gastronomic heaven.

Its hot dogs were "wonderful and are good and have a lot of what they call grease in it." For more elaborate dining, she would sometimes go to the Peach Grill in Gibsonville, "a place that you go in and sit down. They stand up and put food in your plate."

She and Annie Ruth lived alone with an assortment of outdoor cats in that old house -- at least 75 years old -- that was heated mainly by a wood stove. Well into her 60s, she would go into the brush on their property and, using a hand saw, cut deadwood for use in cooking and heating.

"We finally did have what they call gas put in the room we stay in that you sit in and watch television, and company comes in," she told me.

After their father's death, Patsy earned money "staying around" with elderly people and caring for their personal needs. She had a disdain for doctors and dentists.

"I'm gonna tell you the dadblamed truth," she once told me. "I doubt if the doctor listens to his ownself. They don't even have time to take care of their dadblamed self."

She had lost her teeth, but didn't care for dentures, even though it made it difficult to chew the black walnuts that grew abundantly on a tree in their yard.

"I never did like dentists, you know," she said. "I think I've had about one set of false teeth that I ever remember. I learned to chew as good without them as I could with them." Part of her aversion went back to her "staying around" days when the people she cared for would eat in bed, then take their false teeth out and tuck them under the pillow. Patsy would come across them as she made the beds.

I was surprised to learn that Patsy was well traveled. In her younger days, she booked tours to Europe, the Caribbean and to Greece and Turkey. Annie Ruth was more the stay-at-home type.

Patsy put Whitsett on the map for many who read this column, and her neighbors weren't always happy about the things she said. So through mutual agreement, I stopped calling Patsy and writing about her.

A few weeks ago, I learned from Annie Ruth's granddaughter, Tonya Brady, that Patsy had moved out of her beloved home and into Liberty Commons, an assisted-living facility in Elon. A fractured hip had made it impossible for her to get around in the two-story house.

She has adapted well.

"Patsy is truly living the best years of her life at the center," Tonya dold me. She was recently named "Miss Liberty Commons," and she treasures the crown that goes with the title.

I called her recently and discovered the same gregarious lady I had met by telephone years before. She told me she likes to sing to her fellow residents, to the accompaniment of a piano.

What does she sing?

Sacred songs, she said. And songs about the boys in uniform. And other songs.

When I pressed for examples, she began singing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart." She carried the tune well, and had the lyrics nailed.

Annie Ruth now has Alzheimers, and has moved in with her son and daughter-in-law. She still likes to drop by the old house to putter around and sit on the front porch, watching the traffic go by. Patsy is hoping Annie Ruth's family will be able to find a collection of letters she exchanged with a pen pal in England who is now dead.

Before the sisters moved out of the house, said Tonya, "they were blessed with an angel." Gloria Villines (Patsy calls her "Gladys") became a full-time caregiver.

"Gloria spoiled them both and dressed them up like movie stars," even painting their nails and decking them with jewelry and sunglasses.

"She kept them after hours on occasion and would take them to places like K&W or even shopping at the mall for a bit. Of course, Patsy gave her a hard time in the beginning, but soon learned to love her."

Tonya recently took Patsy a scrapbook containing all the columns I wrote about her, and she enjoyed showing them to her friends.

I am honored to contribute to her present-day happiness. And she can call me sweetheart any time she wishes.

Readers may write to Gene Owens at 315 Lakeforest Circle, Anderson SC 29625, or e-mail him at Swampscum2@aol.com.