CHICAGO (WLS) — There was a 100th birthday celebration Sunday in the Morgan Park neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.
The birthday girl still lives in the same home where she was born.
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Doing something she loves surrounded by the people she loves was how Katie Wilson celebrated her very special day as the centenarian marked her 100th birthday.
“I feel good,” Wilson said. “I thank God.”
Saturday afternoon, the Chicago woman had the party of the century and marked the occasion with close friends and five generations of her family.
“We wouldn’t have the things in life we have without her guidance, without her love, without her forgiveness without her discipline, without her hope,” Wilson’s grandson Floyd Johnson said.
Wilson was born Katie Mae Payne on April 19, 1925 in her grandparents’ Morgan Park home, where she still lives to this day.
‘Her grandparents bought two lots and had a house built, and the other lot was for my great-grandmother’s flowers and garden, 103 years ago,” Katie Wilson’s daughter Patricia Wilson said.
Married to one of the first Black CTA bus drivers, Katie Wilson and her husband had five children.
As a stay-at-home mom, she volunteered in her neighborhood and become a staple in her community.
Serenaded by one of her granddaughters, Wilson, who loves to sing, returned the favor with a song of her own on Saturday.
Even though she didn’t blow out any candles, the deeply religious woman still made a well earned birthday wish to her family and friends together and safe as she shared one of the many lessons she’s learned about life over the years.
“It was planned before you were born and after you were born, then you work it out with the Lord,” Wilson said.
While Wilson said she’s grateful for her 100 birthdays, Wilson said she knows she’s been blessed with a wonderful life.
“They came to celebrate my 100 years, to show their love, yeah, and I like that,” Wilson said.
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