Centenarians are a rarity, it’s not every day you see a person who is more than a century in age.
“I like my dress, it’s beautiful, but I was going to wear it tonight,” joked Miss Jessie Trice O’Bryant. “I didn’t know it was a daytime party.”
Miss Jessie “Dollye” Trice O’Bryant, a sassy, jovial senior resident at Christian Extended Care & Rehabilitation continues to beat the odds turning 108 years old on July 23, 2022.
In honor of her birthdate, the center hosted a zoom call and in-house party for some of the staff family members, and church members of East Union Baptist Church to celebrate her amazingly long life.
Karan Henderson, O’Bryant’s great-niece who lives in Tampa, Florida, and visits her monthly, said her aunt had been anticipating her big day for a while.
“She had been waiting for this day and leading up to it she’d often ask if it was my birthday yet,” said Karan.
Stylish as ever and proving old age doesn’t mean you can’t look the part, O’Bryant wore a pretty light pink and silver dress embroidered with delicate flowers and a matching metallic beret. She also rocked pearl accent jewelry, looking every bit of a classy seasoned woman.
“I like my dress, it’s beautiful, but I was going to wear it tonight,” joked O’Bryant. “I didn’t know it was a daytime party.”
The love and appreciation for O’Bryant couldn’t have been more clear on the call as family members prayed for her, honored her with a saxophone rendition of “Amazing Grace,” and affirmed her with endless birthday wishes and words of encouragement.
“I will lift up my eyes into the hills,” one family member said. “108 years of blessings, we are so thankful for you, and we wish you many many more birthdays if you want them.”
Another family member said, “It’s an honor to be honoring you for your 108th birthday, Happy Birthday Aunt Dollye.”
Karan, Edward Washington (Karan’s brother), Christian staff, and other family members that were at the in-person celebration sang Happy Birthday to O’Bryant and she blew out the candles on her favorite cake, a dark chocolate cake with chocolate icing, similar to the one her mother used to bake for her as a young girl.
“Whenever she baked a cake I would dance around,” O’Bryant told The St. Louis American in an interview last year for her 107th birthday. “Sometimes I would sit on her lap in a rocking chair and think of it. It was a dark chocolate cake with chocolate icing.”
O’Bryant was born Jessie Washington on July 23, 1914, in Tunica, Mississippi to Arthur and Lillie Washington. She was raised in Clarksdale Mississippi. There’s a possibility that freed slaves once lived on their land. She grew up one of four children including Lillie, John, and Bennie. Her brother Bennie (now deceased), was ten years younger than her and he’s the one who coined her nickname “Dollye.”
“She wasn’t the nicest to him [Bennie] at first, but once she got used to him he started calling her Dollye and that’s how everyone started calling her that,” Karan said.
O’Bryant is a woman of many talents, which in the past included baking various cakes and working as a professional seamstress for more than 20 years at Linda Rose and Charlotte Better Dress Company. She even sewed Karan’s bridesmaid dresses for her wedding and another family member’s dresses when she was 76.
She learned to sew at home from her sister helping her then she brought those skills with her at school.
“My mom would save scraps she had laying around because she knew I would come looking for them and do something with them,” said O’Bryant in an interview last year with The St. Louis American.
She married twice and took on the last name O’Bryant from her second husband George O’Bryant.
When she was about 19 years old she gave birth to a daughter Shirley, who later died at five weeks old. No cause of death was determined. She didn’t have any other children.
She lived alone until she was 103, then moved into assisted living. She’s been a resident with Christian for five years now.
Read The St. Louis American’s profile last year on O’Bryant on our website.
