Kentucky woman celebrates 105th birthday with her great-great-great-granddaughter
"It's very rare. It's such a blessing."
— -- Lena Hall of Louisville, Kentucky, turned a whopping 105 years old on Oct. 9.
She celebrated the momentous occasion with her large family, including her 1-year-old great-great-great-grandchild, Taliyah.
“The party was wonderful,” Hall told ABC News. “I liked to see all my grandchildren."
Taliyah’s mom, Hall’s great-great-granddaughter Shuniquia Bell, said it’s really special for her daughter to have these memories with Hall.
“It’s very rare,” Bell told ABC News of the 104-year age difference. “It’s such a blessing because my mother passed away and my grandmother passed away and my great-grandmother passed away, so my daughter was unable to meet any of her grandmothers before her great-great-great-grandmother.”
Bell said she’s grateful to have Hall’s memories of her own mom, who died when she was 16, and an extensive history of their family’s past to be able to share with her daughter.
“At the age she is, to think back to memories she’s had, they’re not just educational for me but something I can teach my child. That’s invaluable,” said Bell.
Hall was born in 1912, the same year the Titanic sank. She’s lived through two world wars and her family said she has the stories to prove it.
They affectionately refer to her as “Mama Lena,” and even at 105, “she’s bossy,” her great-granddaughter Symera Oliver Talbott told ABC News.
“She’s the granny from ‘Beverly Hillbillies’ without the shotgun. But maybe she’s got one of those and we just don’t know,” Talbott, 41, said with a laugh. “She’s worse than the mob. She’ll always loan you a few dollars but she wants her money back.”
Despite only having a fourth-grade education, Talbott said Hall always stayed on top of politics and worked the polling booths for years.
“It was always important to her to have a role in what was going on in life,” she said. “She taught us to have an opinion. The young people now say, ‘Stay woke.’ It was important to her for us to ‘stay woke’ to know what was affecting the community. For her to not be very educated, she was very active with her church and her grandchildren.”
Hall’s secret to living a long, successful life?
“Stay out of the bed! The bed will kill ya,” she said.
She also had some advice for younger generations.
“Go to school. Go to church. And, be nice whenever you can because sometimes you have to be mean,” said Hall.
Her family has no doubt she’ll make it to 106, but Hall said she doesn’t want any more parties.
“For her 100th, she wouldn’t do a party. This time, we snuck a party in on her,” said Talbott.
As for still being the boss of the family?
"I'm in charge, but God has the last say,” said Hall.