ST. LOUIS — Age ain’t nothing but a number and it couldn’t be truer in Jessie Trice-O’Bryant’s case.
Seated in a shimmery, metallic long-sleeve frock adorned with pewter and silver jewelry, this sassy resident at Christian Extended Care & Rehabilitation served the perfect amount of glam, including long, lavender fingernails, when she celebrated her 107th on July 23.
To honor her remarkable legacy, her great-niece (her late brother John’s granddaughter) Karan Henderson, organized a virtual call with family members in Arizona, Tennessee, Illinois and Michigan.
Balloons, a backdrop with a picture of her that read Jessie Trice-O’Bryant Happy 107th Birthday and a chocolate cake were part of the festivities.
Renee Cwiklowski, a Christian administrator, said she loves O’Bryant’s “larger than life” personality.
“I love her spirit and her sassiness,” Cwiklowski said. “It’s just never dull with Miss Jessie. She’s just one-of-a-kind.”
Born Jessie Washington on July 23, 1914, in Tunica, Mississippi, she was raised in Clarksdale, Mississippi by Arthur and Lillie Washington. She and three siblings, Lillie, John and Bennie grew up in a small town where most likely freed slaves once lived.
Everyone knew each other, and people often lived on the same street as fellow church members.
One of O’Bryant’s fondest memories of her mother was her cooking, particularly when she baked her favorite dessert, a double-chocolate cake.
“Whenever she said she baked a cake I would start dancing around,” O’Bryant said. “Sometimes I would sit on her lap in a rocking chair and think of it. It was a dark chocolate cake with chocolate icing.”
Going to church every Sunday morning was routine for her family’s household. Before service, her mother would try to comb and style her hair, but there was something about the way her older sister Lillie styled it that made O’Bryant feel at ease.
“When we’d go to Sunday school, my sister would part my hair and style it one way and my mother would try to do it the same way, but when she did it I cried,” O’Bryant said. “But my sister would still comb it.”
Eventually, she relocated from Clarksdale to St. Louis for better economic opportunities. Back home, most people did domestic work or worked on a farm. She wanted something better for herself.
She knew how to sew, and gained more experience in the field working as a seamstress at the Linda Rose and Charlotte Better Dress Company factories for almost 20 years.
She first learned how to sew at school and home, her sister also helped her.
“My mom would save scraps she had laying around because she knew I would come looking for them and do something with them,” O’Bryant said.
She met her first husband, Albert, when she moved to St. Louis and they married young. He died in 1971 and she later married George O’Bryant, who has also passed.
When she lived in Mississippi, she had a daughter named Shirley who died at five weeks old. Since it happened years ago, and O’Bryant was only about 19 at the time, no autopsy was performed to confirm the cause of death.
After her second husband died, she became more independent and lived alone until she was 103. Doctors told Henderson it was time for O’Bryant to move into an assisted living facility.
She has been a resident at Christian for about four years and Henderson said she appreciates the much-needed love, care, and attentiveness they provide her beloved great-aunt.
“I like Christian Extended Care because they build a really good relationship with her and they cater to her needs,” Henderson said. She’s what I call a “diva,” she likes to be catered to and looked after. They do that for her and I appreciate that.”
O’Bryant’s niece, Helen Flagg, said she was always her go-to, getaway person whenever she vacationed in St. Louis from West Helena, Arkansas. Similar to her mother’s culinary skills, many people raved about O’Bryant’s cooking including Flagg.
“I would eat things that she cooked that I didn’t eat from my mom,” Flagg said. “My mom asked her how do you get her to eat certain things that you cook. She joked and said ‘change the pots, she’ll eat it’. I remember this meal she cooked. It was pork chops, speckled butter beans and rice. I wouldn’t eat that at home but when she fixed it I would.”
O’Bryant surprisingly eats the same thing every day; tomato soup and ice cream. She was asked what’s her secret to living a long life and being a feisty jokester. She responded by asking if the reporter “was drunk.”
All jokes aside, Henderson credits O’Bryant’s positive energy, her faith and belief in God and her being an active person as reasons for her longevity.
“She’s always been a busy person doing things,” Henderson said. “She always sewed and baked for others. Even now she likes to work on puzzles, read the bible, and read magazines. I think as long as she keeps her mind and her body active she’ll be around for a while.”