By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

NICODEMUS -- Ora Switzer never met a stranger, and never forgot those she met.

"She was an absolutely grand old lady," said Don Scott, a Graham County commissioner and former longtime sheriff. "She was the salt of the earth."

Ora Switzer, matriarch of all-black Nicodemus, died Sunday at Graham County Hospital in Hill City. She was 106 years old.

"It was a great loss," her son, Veryl Switzer, said of losing his mother. "She lived a good life. It was selfish to see her leave, but it was because we loved her."

Miss Ora, as she's known to most residents of Nicodemus, had long lived in an apartment in Nicodemus, not far, she said in an interview in 2004, from where she was born. She only recently moved into Dawson Place in Hill City.

Switzer said she was born Feb. 24, 1903, about a "mile and a half out in the field," her hand waving toward the northeast of her Nicodemus apartment. "I'm not too far off my birthplace."

Save for a time she spent in Topeka, Miss Ora never had strayed far from her birthplace.

And while she was 106 years old, her mind remained sharp, according to Phyllis Howard, a park ranger at the Nicodemus National Historic Site.

Miss Ora's health was mentioned at Sunday services at the First Baptist Church of Nicodemus.

"She was one of five generations of descendants here in Nicodemus," Howard said of Ora Switzer.

During her life, she was a teacher, both in the Nicodemus school, and specifically on piano. Her family also owned the Switzer hotel, and she worked there and at the restaurant inside.

She also played piano and sang at church, which was located across the street from her apartment at Nicodemus Villa.

Her piano was a fixture in her apartment, but in 2004 she declined to play.

"If I'm not reading, maybe I'll play a tune on the piano to keep myself from getting lonesome."

At the time, she wasn't keen about getting up and playing on the piano, but she admitted she just wasn't lonesome.

Ora Switzer was the oldest of eight children.

"She was the oldest and last to die," said son Veryl, the youngest of six children. Five are still living, he said.

"She taught me how to be sociable, how to be a person," he said.

It worked, as Switzer, after a stint with the Green Bay Packers, worked for the Chicago Board of Education before returning to Kansas State University. He now is semi-retired.

On Monday, he was doing a little farm work, running a tractor on land he still owns in the Nicodemus area.

For Ora Switzer, family always came first, Scott said.

Services still are somewhat up in the air, pending the arrival of all of Switzer's children.

Veryl Switzer, however, said it's likely the service will be at 11 a.m. Sept. 5 at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in nearby Hill City.

"Because it's large enough to hold a large number of people," Switzer said of the reason the service will be at the church in Hill City. "We thought it would be best, because she knew a lot of people."

"She was a nice person," Howard said.