Elizabeth Brown Wilson

The nation celebrated its 100th birthday on July 4, 1776, as did formerly enslaved people in the South. It was an occasion to recognize their freedom, particularly for one couple that summer who lived near Savannah, Georgia. A few weeks later they celebrated the birth of their little girl named Elizabeth.

There were six older siblings in the Brown family, and there would be six more to follow this one. The typical assumption is they may have been sharecroppers; Elizabeth often recalled her rural upbringing and called herself a “little country girl.” But they weren’t far from Georgia’s second largest city and the state’s major port, so some of the Browns may have been engaged in non-farm work.

Her obituary doesn’t reveal when she arrived in Philadelphia or other details on her parents who once lived under slavery. When she was nine years old, Elizabeth was baptized in her Methodist church and felt a fervent call to share the Gospel with others.

It was said she became a preacher and also married a preacher, Walter Wilson, who died sometime prior to 1950. While there was no mention of children, she was survived by several cousins and a niece, indicating she wasn’t alone in moving to Philadelphia.

In her younger years she worked as a domestic. She sang hymns while she worked and she sang hymns while taking long walks. A cousin recalled that he heard “Lela” and another relative singing so much he decided to learn how to play the piano.

When Elizabeth celebrated her 113th birthday, Mayor Wilson Goode came to her party along with 169 others. She was living at the Elmira Jeffries Memorial Home in North Philadelphia. Although blind and in a wheelchair, she said she felt “fit as a fiddle” and wanted to make sure she was presentable in her pink dress, “because the TV cameras are here.”

She never drank or smoked, and when asked about her best piece of advice, it would always be, “Believe in God, trust in God, and you’ll live a long life.” Elizabeth certainly did, and after 114 years, she is, by far, the oldest person buried here.