Alzheimer’s isn’t stopping ex-model and former restaurateur Barbara Smith – known as B. Smith – from bringing awareness to the disease and the caregivers who play a vital role in the lives of those fighting it.
Smith and her husband, Dan Gatsby, have partnered with the Caregiver Action Network for a social media campaign designed to help caregivers of the nearly five million Americans battling the brain disorder.
They are urging people to share a memory or picture of someone who has or had Alzheimer’s on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest using the hashtag #Take1Moment.
In return, the campaign will give a “thank you meal” to a caregiver courtesy of Chef’d, a gourmet meal delivery service. They plan to give away 1,000 meals.
“Caregivers are like first responders in the family. They run to the situation as opposed to running away,” Gatsby told TheGrio.com on Monday, which is World Alzheimer’s Day.
“The thing about being a caregiver and the husband is that sometimes the roles get to be intermingled and you have to make decisions or you have to sort of be a parent at times,” said Gatsby, who has been married to Smith for 23 years and her caregiver since she was diagnosed four years ago.
“It can be a very stressful situation, but you have to learn to be patient,” Gatsby said. “We have such a strong love and commitment for each other that we work through those things.”
In November, Smith, 66, made headlines when she was reported missing from her Long Island home, but was found safely 14 hours later in a Manhattan diner.
Smith, who was the first black model on the cover of Mademoiselle in 1976, told TheGrio.com that she feels “great” and couldn’t fight this battle without her husband. He regularly encourages her to exercise and read. She also still enjoys cooking.
“He’s with me the whole time. I’ve been feeling good about all the things that we’ve been doing together,” said Smith, who hosted the popular TV show, “B. Smith with Style” and owned three southern comfort food restaurants (which have now all closed).
The couple said they’ve also gotten involved in the fight against Alzheimer’s because blacks are two times more likely than whites to develop the degenerative brain disease, which is the sixth leading cause of death in the country.
According to a study conducted in 2013 by the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging in Chicago, Alzheimer’s rates could nearly triple by 2050.
But Gatsby is hopeful the continued awareness can lead to a different outcome.
“I believe 20 years from now the kids are going to be saying, ‘I heard of Alzheimer’s, what is it?’ But we can only do that if we start now by talking about it and taking care of the people who are taking care of the people who have Alzheimer’s,” he added. “We’re going to find a cure for this.”
Smith, who has authored three books on cooking and lifestyle, is currently working on a new book about dealing with Alzheimer’s, which is due out in January. It will be co-authored with her husband.
But Smith isn’t waiting for the book to come out to send a strong message to people fighting Alzheimer’s.
When asked to share words of encouragement, Smith swiftly responded with three words: “Never give up.”
For more information about the campaign, visit caregiveraction.org.
article by Michael J. Feeney via thegrio.com
Posts published in “Seniors”
General Frank Petersen, the U.S. Marines’ first Black pilot and general, has died at age 83.
Hoping to escape pervasive racism in his Kansas hometown, General Frank Petersen joined the U.S. Navy in 1950 as a seaman apprentice, reports The Boston Globe.
The following year, motivated by the death of the Navy’s first Black aviator Jesse Brown in the Korean War, Petersen entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Program, the report says. From there, he went on to make history himself, earning a Purple Heart for wounds suffered in Vietnam “when he was ejected after his plane was struck by anti-aircraft fire over the demilitarized zone” in 1968.
He died Tuesday at his home in Stevensville, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The cause was complications from lung cancer, according to The Globe:
President Harry S. Truman had ordered the armed forces to desegregate in 1948, but General Petersen later wrote that the Navy and Marine Corps were ‘‘the last to even entertain the idea of integrating their forces.’’ And whenever he left the flight training base in Pensacola, Fla., he was subjected to the indignities of the Jim Crow South.
Bus drivers ordered him to the back of the coach, and he was barred from sitting with white cadets in restaurants and movie theaters. He largely swallowed the treatment, he later told The Washington Post, because he could not fight two battles at once. ‘‘I knew that I couldn’t win if I were to tackle that, as opposed to getting my wings,’’ he said.
One instructor tried to minimize his performance in the air — giving him lackluster ratings — but he said white peers came to his defense. Upon completion of his flight training, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. He flew 64 combat missions in Korea in 1953 and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, among other decorations.
Besides his wife, Alicia Downes, of Stevensville, Maryland and Washington, he leaves behind four children from his first marriage, a brother, a sister, four grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
Rest in peace and thank you, Gen. Petersen.
article by Lynette Holloway via newsone.com
WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. — A Michigan woman who was believed to be the nation’s oldest veteran at 110 has died, about a month after meeting President Barack Obama in the Oval Office.
Emma Didlake died Sunday in West Bloomfield, northwest of Detroit, according to the Oakland County medical examiner’s office.
Didlake was a 38-year-old wife and mother of five when she signed up in 1943 for the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. She served about seven months stateside during the war, as a private and driver.
She spent time with the president in July during a trip to Washington that was arranged by Talons Out Honor Flight, a southwest Michigan chapter of a national nonprofit that provides free, one-day trips for veterans to visit monuments and memorials in the nation’s capital.
“Emma Didlake served her country with distinction and honor, a true trailblazer for generations of Americans who have sacrificed so much for their country,” Obama said Monday afternoon in a statement. “I was humbled and grateful to welcome Emma to the White House last month, and Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to Emma’s family, friends, and everyone she inspired over her long and quintessentially American life.”
Didlake was born in Alabama and moved with her family to Detroit in 1944. She was known to her family as “Big Mama” and recently moved to an assisted living family in suburban Detroit.
She was deemed the oldest U.S. veteran based on information gleaned by Honor Flight representatives through national outreach campaigns.
Granddaughter Marilyn Horne told The Associated Press last month that when Talons Out officials presented her grandmother with a short-sleeved shirt bearing the group’s logo to wear on the trip to Washington, Didlake took a look and said: “‘I don’t have Michelle Obama arms — I’m going to need a jacket.'”
During her visit to the White House, Didlake wore a patriotic-themed neck scarf and sat in her wheelchair in the same spot in the Oval Office where foreign leaders sit when they meet with Obama.
article by Associated Press via nbcnews.com
“The birthday is just another day,” Agnes Fenton whispered, pooh-poohing the milestone she reaches Saturday. Fenton, who has a lovely face, celebrated No. 110.
And just like that, the beloved Englewood resident — who has extolled the wonders of Miller High Life and Johnnie Walker — punched her ticket into the ultra-exclusive “supercentenarian” club.
Of the 7 billion people on the planet, a microscopic number are 110 or older. Robert Young, director of the Gerontology Research Group, which keeps track of supercentenarians, estimates 600. Dr. Thomas Perls, founding director of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University School of Medicine, of which Fenton is a participant, puts the number at 360.
That means roughly 1 in every 10 million people in the world is a supercentenarian. Which makes Agnes Fenton special. Just don’t tell her that.
When a reporter visited her in the run-up to the big birthday, Fenton answered “lousy” when asked how she felt. But she warmed to the conversation and emphasized that God is the reason she’s lived this long.
“When I was 100 years old, I went to the mirror to thank God that I was still here. And I thank him every morning,” she said in a voice one must strain to hear. She sat in a wheelchair at the kitchen table in her green-shingled, Cape Cod-style home near Route 4.
“He gave me a long life and a good life, and I have nothing to complain about. … You’ve got to have God in your life. Without God, you’ve got nothing.”
Agnes Fenton was born Agnes Jones on Aug. 1, 1905, in Holly Springs, Miss. She spent her early years in Memphis and ran a restaurant there called Pal’s Duck Inn. Fenton, who has no children, came north to Englewood in the 1950s with her second husband, Vincent Fenton. She worked as a cafeteria manager for a magazine publisher, then as a nanny. Her husband, whom she called “Fenton,” died in 1970.
Cicely Tyson, Rita Moreno, George Lucas, singer-songwriter Carole King, conductor Seiji Ozawa and the Eagles have been selected to receive this year’s Kennedy Center Honors, the center said Wednesday.
The artists will be celebrated Dec. 6 at a gala to be broadcast Dec. 29 on CBS. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are expected to attend along with other notables from the worlds of showbiz, politics and business.
The Honors gala, now in its 38th year, will again cap a weekend of celebrations to include a private dinner at the U.S. State Department the preceding evening hosted by Secretary of State John Kerry. Honorees receive their colorful medallions at that event. In addition, the Obamas will host honorees and others at the White House prior to the gala performance.
Kennedy Center Chairman David M. Rubenstein saluted this year’s selections, which were chosen based on the recommendation of the Center’s Special Honors Advisory Committee. Other input is offered by the center’s board of trustees, its artists committee and the public.
Rubenstein praised Tyson for her range of strong female roles on stage and screen that “have broken boundaries for women of color,” and said Moreno’s “iconic spitfire roles” are embedded in the heart of American culture, while Ozawa’s artistic leadership as a conductor has “set a new standard for orchestras around the world.” He
Rubenstein said the music of the Eagles “has endured as the quintessential American rock and roll sound for generations.” The core band members to be feted are Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Timothy B. Schmit and Joe Walsh.
King, another pop hitmaker, has a canon of “heartfelt lyrics and tunes (that) are woven throughout the tapestry of American music.” Films from Lucas have “enriched our world with stories of epic adventure,” said the KenCen chieftain.
Kennedy Center president Deborah Rutter said the latest slate of honorees shares a powerful common theme — artists as history-makers and artists who defy both convention and category. “Each honoree and their career-spanning achievements exemplify a rare quality of artistic bravery,” she said. “They have pushed the limits of their gifts as musicians, actors, and storytellers to inspire generations of Americans and those around the world.”
article by Paul Harris via Variety.com
The artists will be celebrated Dec. 6 at a gala to be broadcast Dec. 29 on CBS. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are expected to attend along with other notables from the worlds of showbiz, politics and business.
The Honors gala, now in its 38th year, will again cap a weekend of celebrations to include a private dinner at the U.S. State Department the preceding evening hosted by Secretary of State John Kerry. Honorees receive their colorful medallions at that event. In addition, the Obamas will host honorees and others at the White House prior to the gala performance.
Kennedy Center Chairman David M. Rubenstein saluted this year’s selections, which were chosen based on the recommendation of the Center’s Special Honors Advisory Committee. Other input is offered by the center’s board of trustees, its artists committee and the public.
Rubenstein praised Tyson for her range of strong female roles on stage and screen that “have broken boundaries for women of color,” and said Moreno’s “iconic spitfire roles” are embedded in the heart of American culture, while Ozawa’s artistic leadership as a conductor has “set a new standard for orchestras around the world.” He
Rubenstein said the music of the Eagles “has endured as the quintessential American rock and roll sound for generations.” The core band members to be feted are Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Timothy B. Schmit and Joe Walsh.
King, another pop hitmaker, has a canon of “heartfelt lyrics and tunes (that) are woven throughout the tapestry of American music.” Films from Lucas have “enriched our world with stories of epic adventure,” said the KenCen chieftain.
Kennedy Center president Deborah Rutter said the latest slate of honorees shares a powerful common theme — artists as history-makers and artists who defy both convention and category. “Each honoree and their career-spanning achievements exemplify a rare quality of artistic bravery,” she said. “They have pushed the limits of their gifts as musicians, actors, and storytellers to inspire generations of Americans and those around the world.”
article by Paul Harris via Variety.com
Pearl Thompson was a student at Shaw University in 1942 when she walked over to a public library in Raleigh, N.C., to check out a book she was assigned to read for class.
But instead of issuing a library card to Thompson and allowing her to check out the book, the library staff at the Olivia Raney Library—a library intended only for whites at the time—sent Thompson to the basement and told her that she had to read the book there and couldn’t take it out of the library.
More than 70 years later, Thompson, now 93, is being honored in Raleigh, N.C., as a lifelong educator, and she has made it a point to return to get the library card that was denied her so long ago.
Thompson told the News & Observer that she knew that the Olivia Raney Library, Raleigh’s first public library, was only for white patrons, but she was on a mission to get the book that she needed.
“I expected to go in and get a book,” Thompson said.
That thirst for knowledge and determination to break down racial barriers in educational spaces stayed with her. Thompson went on to teach in Raleigh’s segregated black schools for more than a decade. In an emotional video showing the Raleigh event that honored her work, Thompson described how she vowed that she would work hard to give children opportunities to learn, and to expose them to the resources they would need to succeed.
article by Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele via theroot.com
article by Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele via theroot.com
Talk about a “senior moment.” 99-year-old Doreetha Daniels is no stranger to chasing her dreams. Dulce recently graduated from the College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, CA. According to ktla.com, the 99 year-old was inspired by her grandchildren.
Her son said she persevered through her education despite suffering a couple of strokes and losing her driver’s license.
College officials said Daniels struggled sometimes — especially with computer literacy — at a campus where most students are 18 to 24 years old.
But she just worked harder, according to the college. Twice a week before class, she studied, did her homework and worked with tutors at the college’s tutoring center.
She was touted as “one of the most dedicated and hardworking students” in the statistics class, the college said in a news release.
Doreetha stated, “99, here I am. I accomplished what I wanted to do, and this is my dream come true.”
When she was asked what advice she would to younger generations, Daniels said: “Don’t give up. Do it. Don’t let anybody discourage you. Say that, ‘I’m going to do it,’ and do it for yourself.”
article by Courtney Whitaker via madamenoire.com
article by Courtney Whitaker via madamenoire.com
Over 100 family and friends came to celebrate the 105th birthday of Lee Wesley Gibson at Maggiano’s Italian Restaurant in Los Angeles on Thursday, May 21st, given by his three daughters, Gwendolyn Reed, Barbara Leverette and Gloria Gibson of Los Angeles.
According to records at the A. Phillip Randolph Museum in Chicago, Gibson is currently the oldest living Pullman Porters. Gibson was immaculately dressed wearing a designer suit and tie, a custom white dress shirt with “105” embroidered on cuffs.
The invocations was given by his pastor, Bishop Craig A. Worsham of People’s Independent Church of Christ in Los Angeles. The guests dined to a sumptuous meal, which included crabcakes, fried zucchini, pecan, apples and grapes garden salad, chicken marsala, tilipia, eggplant, spinach and mash potatoes, fresh fruit and New York cheesecake.
Gibson received a congratulatory letter was received from President Barack Obama, as well as resolutions from Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas, as well as, President of the Los Angeles City Council Herb Wesson, signed by all members of the council.
Larry Jefferson, a close family friend, sang a soaring, acapella rendition of Happy Birthday prior to Gibson blowing out the candles on his cake. As the afternoon came to a close, Gibson’s daughters, Gloria and Gwendolyn, paid tribute to their father and thanked everyone who helped make the afternoon possible.
Gibson was born on May 21, 1910 in Keatchie, Louisiana. His family moved to Marshall, Texas when he was a young boy. He later married Beatrice A. Gibson in 1927 and they moved their family to Los Angeles, California in 1936.
His beloved wife passed away in 2004 after 76 of marriage. Gibson retired from Union Pacific Railroad in 1974 after serving for 38 years as a Pullman Porter.
Even after retirement, he continued to live life to the fullest. He volunteered at Los Angeles International Airport assisting travelers. Gibson also managed income tax preparation offices for H&R Block. He served as District Director for AARP tax preparation assistance program for seniors.
Gibson has served as church treasurer, deacon, and officer of the church credit union at People’s Independent Church, where he has been a member for over 65 years. Most recently Mr. Gibson was featured in a TV commercial for Dodge entitled “Wisdom,” which honored centenarians. It aired during the 2015 Super Bowl telecast.
Gibson is in great health, taking only a daily vitamin. He enjoys going to church, spending time with family and friends, watching the Los Angeles Dodgers and attending social events. In addition to his three daughters, he is the grandfather of six, great-grandfather of nineteen, great-great-grandfather of twenty-two and the great-great-great-grandfather of three.
article via eurweb.com
At 77, Rose Green is still brushing off her cleats and maintaining her status as one of the fastest sprinters in her age group, My Fox DC reports. It’s a pretty impressive feat, not only because of her age but also because she took up the sport just last year and rose to the top of the ranks in such a short time.
According to My Fox DC, Green, a resident of Prince George’s County, Md., has won medals in several competitions, including the 200- and 400-meter races, and is the nation’s record holder in her age group in the 60-meter sprint. Green, a great-grandmother, is trained vigorously by coach Cortez Austin. He’s also her boyfriend.
“She’s world-class,” Austin said about Green’s work ethic and ability. She trains seven days a week.
Green says that she doesn’t get any special treatment from Austin. “He’ll tell me, ‘Your form is not right, you’re not going as fast as you should,’ ” Green said. “He’s a very strict coach even though we are lovers.”
Green is turning into a local celebrity in her Cameron Grove adult community, and she’s helping students and other runners strive to greatness as well. “She is like a celebrity,” said Austin. “It’s no question that she is an inspiration.”
“I hear that so many times that I’m starting to believe that I’m an inspiration to all these people,” Green said.
Green is currently training for the national senior championships in July. “I’m working towards the world record,” she said. “Why not?”
Read more and see video of this inspiring woman at My Fox DC.
article by Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele via theroot.com
article by Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele via theroot.com
From 1900 to 1932, no African-American cadet matriculated at the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1932, Benjamin O. Davis Jr., the son of an Army officer, was admitted. He was “silenced” or shunned by his classmates for four years as officers and administrators at West Point looked the other way. No cadets, faculty or staff members befriended or spoke to him except on an official basis. Yet Davis persisted and graduated 35th in his class.
Benjamin O. Davis Jr. went on to command the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II and later was the first Black general in the U.S. Air Force. He died in 2002.
Now the U.S. Military Academy is paying tribute to General Davis by naming a new cadet barracks in his honor.
“General Benjamin O. Davis Jr. epitomizes the essence of character and honorable living we strive to inspire in every cadet at West Point,” said Lt. Gen. Robert L. Caslen, superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy.
article via jbhe.com