Centenarian plus oneCentenarian plus one

July 15, 1919, was a Tuesday. Those born during this time are known as the Greatest Generation as they grew up during the great depression and then some went on to fight in World War II. Nothing really noteworthy of national news happened on this date. Except, maybe something did. On this date, there was born a woman by the name of Mary Burleson, as she would become. No one would guess that she would celebrate her 101st birthday. In the midst of a pandemic, her family gathered outside of Focused Care of Linden with signs wishing her the happiest of birthdays.

Indeed, it was a happy birthday. With cake and presents, despite the fact that family and friends were relegated to the outside for her health and wellbeing, she was full of good cheer as she blew out the candles on a pretty pink cake and opened presents.

Imagine the life she has lived and the things she has witnessed in her 101 years. In 1927 Charles Lindbergh made his first solo transatlantic flight, nonstop, in his plane The Spirit of St. Louis.

In 1932 she saw the first woman, Hattie Wyatt Caraway of Arkansas, elected to the U.S. Senate and the first woman to complete a transatlantic solo, nonstop flight, by Amelia Earhart.

She has seen the start and end of many wars. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and seen the U.S set foot on the moon.

Burleson has lived a life rich with history and full of wisdom and continue to add to that wealth of knowledge of a world so changed by the years gone by.