Mattie Geneva Ellis, my grandmother, came to us on the 5th of May 1928. She witnessed Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, both the beginning and end of the Great Depression, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Jesse Owens embarrass Hitler. She watched as the world was introduced to Scotch tape, the ballpoint pen, and color television, as humankind first set foot on the moon, the birth of the Internet, and the invention of the Atom Bomb. She heard the news on the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat and when Barack Obama was elected as the first African American U.S. President. The sheer breadth of my grandmother’s experience was mind-boggling and we were all truly gifted to have witnessed her.

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