After Earl's death, Parker lived by herself on a farm on Blueridge Road. She stayed there until she was 100, when she moved in to live with one of her sons. On a winter night, she was alone while her son and his wife went to a basketball game. When they came back, they found her in the back yard, in poor health, in the snow, and could only be seen as she had been wearing a red sweater that she liked a lot. Her family feared that she would die, but her health got much better. After that, the family thought that she needed to move to a nursing home.