Susannah Mushatt Jones
Miss Susie, as her adoring family called her— was a sweet, loving, family-oriented woman with a strong and courageous life story.
The granddaughter of an emancipated slave, Susannah was born in Alabama in 1899.
Although she was admitted to Tuskegee University, her parents could not afford tuition, so she made her way north where she was a domestic worker for most of her life. She did not have children of her own, but used her earnings to help put multiple nieces, nephews and even several non family members in Alabama through school.
We met her for the first time on the occasion of her 116th birthday in a community room at the Vandalia Senior Center in Brooklyn. A gaggle of TV reporters and smiling politicians descended upon her with great fanfare. The event was marked by songs, steel drums, flashing cameras, and dancing.
Miss Susie was asleep almost the whole time— an odd and rather unsettling detail that went entirely unmentioned.