EDWARDS — It would be most nigh impossible to keep a straight face or remain solemn very long around Gloria Christiansen, for, to her, “life is funny and fun.”

“I have never had a day without laughter,” she said, for she finds something comic in just about every situation. It began 64 years ago on Christmas Eve in Palisade, Neb.

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She’s a free spirit, her views of life laced with a bit of impish rebellion, her mirthful chuckles or loud laughter, her happiness and humor contagious, and her upbeat outlook is evident in whatever she does — writing, painting, decorating, cooking, woodworking — and whatever she does could never be called routine.

Gloria lives in an 89-year-old house on a hill near downtown Edwards because life took an unexpected turn in 1979 while she and her husband and children thought they were headed to Portland, Ore.

Husband John was a career Army man who was hoping to move to Oregon from his Virginia assignment, but somebody beat him to the western post and only two other spots were open — Shreveport and Jackson.

Gloria made the choice because, “Well, you know, I had heard that song, ‘I’m Going to Jackson,’ and thought it might be an exciting place — and it was, at first.”

They arrived in the Capital City just after the Easter flood. When John retired eight years later, they found a house on Luster Street in Edwards and fell in love with it. They had thought of retiring to Arkansas, but by that time their children, Adam and Angela, thought of Mississippi as home.

That was 22 years ago, when local folks probably thought she talked a bit funny, but Gloria said recently, “I think I’m Southern now,” for, among other things, that gives her a stake in Mississippi for her cemetery lot.

She still doesn’t have a Southern drawl, but words such as “fixin’” and “yonder” and “y’all” are sprinkled in her conversation. She even learned to like grits, “when I found out you could add cheese and garlic.”

A major difference in Southerners and those from “off” is that where Gloria grew up folks are a bit more plainspoken — whereas in Dixie they’ll say, “That’s interesting,” which means they don’t like it or don’t approve.

One thing she thinks all will agree on is how much even the natives dislike the heat and humidity, but she’s found the ceiling fans on her big front porch make it bearable.

A Southern food favorite, greens — turnips or collards — is something Gloria said she has never craved. She doesn’t cook them, but she will eat them and she’s found a different use for the leaves: she uses them as molds, casting them in concrete. One morning at about 6 she saw Martha Stewart demonstrating the technique on TV, and before noon she had all the stuff needed to make one and a few hours later had completed her first concrete leaf. She’s sold them, given some away and has others in her yard. Any large leaf will do for a mold, she said.

Something else she has tried — and mastered — is making Adirondack chairs for the porch or yard. John built a shop, then a picnic table, then said, “I don’t think I like this,” and Gloria countered with, “Well, I think I do.” He bought her a lot of lumber — the expensive kind without knots — and she began making and selling chairs. When he asked about her profit margin, the answer was “100 percent so far because you paid for everything.”

Gloria enjoys art. She appreciates art and decided to try her brush at it, buying paints and taking lessons from B.J. Crawford in Utica. Her works were mostly landscapes and Edwards scenes until she changed direction, creating abstracts, “which I did sort of to irritate one of my fellow students, and then I decided I really liked it. It caused kind of a stir for several weeks, and B.J. wouldn’t even cash my checks for my lessons because she said, ‘I didn’t teach you that.’”

She also has a natural flair for decorating and tends toward simple solutions. When the old wallpaper in her house came loose, she just pulled it down, exposing the bare boards, tacks and all. It didn’t cost a thing and looks like it was planned by a professional designer. She has just the right touch in decorating with antiques and hand-me-downs.

Walking is one of her favorite pastimes and she began it alone, but now has walking buddies. With camera in hand, she explored the streets of Edwards, even where there were juke joints and people hung out on the sidewalks drinking beer. She soon became a familiar figure around town, speaking to everyone and stopping to listen to the street preachers.

“You know I’ll talk to everybody and anybody,” she said. “I wasn’t going to live anywhere that I was afraid.”

She has made a pictorial record of people and buildings, “and found it fun learning about the South that way.”

It was about 20 years ago that she began writing a column — weekly when she feels like it — in the Hinds County Gazette at Raymond, taking the job because “it’s hard to get anybody to do anything, so I just up and volunteered.” People wouldn’t give her enough community news, so “I just wrote about what I wanted to.” She discovered the power of the press when she had a misunderstanding with a large bank and got no cooperation, concern or satisfaction until she mentioned that she wielded a pen for the newspaper, and “I got immediate attention.” Sometimes her writing is humorous and personal, and sometimes she gets on her soapbox to solve the problems of society.

“The secret to a social life in a small Southern town is church,” she said. It begins when the newcomer is visited by someone, really a scout from the congregation who gives a report, “and you just keep going to church, and when there’s a job nobody wants to do, you volunteer to do it, and pretty soon you’re indispensable.”

She’s Presbyterian but has worked with the Methodist and Baptist congregations and has been described as “an all-denominational friend.”

Gloria has a love affair with the South, enjoying the traditions and grieving the ones that are fading fast. One she plans to uphold is ambrosia, “which I was told was only served at Christmas.”

It was just a year ago that she first tasted the Southern yuletide favorite, “so I commenced making ambrosia, and I didn’t like the way it was so juicy, so I added some gelatin. Some friends stopped by and I said, ‘Oh, I have made ambrosia, and I’m just so proud of it as I can be,’ and my friend— fire was almost coming out of her ears — she said, ‘That is NOT ambrosia,’ and I said, ‘Well, it is,’ and I told her what I’d done to it. She regained her composure and said, ‘Well, it’s pretty, but it’s not ambrosia.’”

Gloria wrote about her experience in the Gazette and found everybody had a recipe, all different, and everybody but one person said, “Oh I’ve never made it, but my grandmother made it this way.”

Several years ago Gloria was diagnosed with cancer, and John was suffering with heart problems. John had bypass surgery, and Gloria began chemotherapy treatments, which were secondary to the prayers said for her all over town. Soon after she came home with the news that she was cancer free, and they both cried, John passed away in his sleep. That was two years ago.

Gloria immediately called Paula Cannada who rushed to the house to take care of things. Later in the day, they were sitting in the living room when Gloria “looked over there and saw this red makeup kit. I said, ‘Where in the world did that come from?’ and Paula said, ‘Oh, I never go anywhere without my makeup. I may not have it on but it’s with me.’ She thought to grab it when she came to help me. Can you imagine? We all roared. We needed that. I think there is something funny every day.”

The people must have accepted the lady “with my strange accent, I’m still here. They haven’t run me off yet.”

Superficial differences didn’t stop Gloria from making friends and considering herself at home. She thinks folks had more trouble understanding her than she did dissecting their Southern drawls.

Soon Gloria will be going back to Nebraska, to take her mother’s ashes, but she won’t stay there. Edwards is home, and besides, “The people in Nebraska probably think I talk funny.”

Gordon Cotton is an author and historian who lives in Vicksburg.