105 years living a blessed life

On March 8, 1920, Mabel B. Hughes was born to David and Maggie Brown in Canton, Miss. From facing life as a Black woman in the rural south during the Jim Crow Era to bearing witness to major historical events that shaped our country over the decades, she remains a living treasure to her family and everyone who knows her as they celebrate Mrs. Hughes’ 105th birthday this month.  

“Trust in the Lord – that’s what keeps me going,” she says about her secret to such longevity. “I’ve never smoked, drank and never did no running around.”  

Mrs. Hughes has lived through many major events in American history – the Great Depression; World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars; the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr; Alaska and Hawaii becoming the 49th and 50th states; passage of the Civil Rights Act; the first moon landing… The list goes on. She is now among the very few, especially in Tacoma, who have lived more than a century.

With the support of her loving family, Mrs. Hughes lived alone until she was 99 years old and is now safe and secure in the Comfort Pillar adult family home in Spanaway. Upon meeting her, one could never guess her age. Her appearance certainly doesn’t give it away and she is alert and talkative as ever, including her delightful sense of humor. 

Her health is good as well, aside from occasional problems with mobility. When she might have trouble getting up on her bed, she knows what to do. As Mrs. Hughes said, “I’ll try it a few times then I’ll say, ‘Lord, help me to make it.’ When I say that and try again, up there I go so he must be here. Sometimes, I know he is.”

The strength within Mrs. Hughes was born into her. Her father was a farmer who worked from sun-up to sun-down. Her mother took care of the home and children, which was non-stop work with four sons and four daughters to care for, Mabel being the eldest. Six of Mrs. Hughes’ siblings have passed away, leaving just her and her 94-year-old sister who lives in Maryland. 

The family lived off the produce they grew themselves and the livestock on their 60 acres of land that sustained them. When it came time to slaughter a pig, it was a community event, and everyone would enjoy the chitlins and other treats the hog would give. All kinds of foods were preserved through numerous methods including canning. 

“Sometimes we’d have no fancy food for breakfast, so we’d go get our peaches and put some peaches on, fry some salt pork and have some bread,” Mrs. Hughes said. 

They had to be self-sufficient in everything including making their own medicines and remedies – like mixing red clay with vinegar and salt, putting it on a brown paper bag and applying it to bruises or injuries since they couldn’t go to the doctor for everything back in those days. Torches, coal oil lanterns and lamps gave them light and pine tree knots full of resin made for another fuel source. They had no indoor running water and made trips to the outhouse no matter the weather.

Trips into town were made about once a month. A horse and buggy provided their transportation. It was in town where the family felt the racial divisions that kept them segregated. This was the era of the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow laws and outright racism on the lawbooks. Mrs. Hughes told of one café where Black patrons weren’t allowed inside but had to go to a window in the back to place their order and get their food. At another café, Black folks could go inside but all the white people had tables and chairs while Black people had to sit on a bench along the walls. 

“For whites, they had tables and chairs, and they had a long bench all the way around the wall for the Blacks,” she said. Separate sinks and fountains were labeled “white” and “colored.”  

In the rural Jim Crow south, Black women were limited to work as maids and housekeepers, which Mrs. Hughes did along with doing people’s washing and ironing; cooking; being a midwife; taking care of a lot of sick people, some of them in her own home; and babysitting. She spent her life taking care of others no matter their race. Mrs. Hughes then, and now, treats everyone equally.

Her sense of humor always popping up, she told of a family who needed her to take care of their little children while they were away for a week.

“The boy pinched my leg, and he told his mama, ‘She’s not Black! You told me she was Black! She ain’t Black – she’s brown!” she said as she laughed out loud.

In 1938, Mrs. Hughes married Levy Hughes Sr., also of Canton, Miss. He was a sharecropper working the farm in the evening and by day did what was called “public work” in construction, home building and other projects. She had an eighth-grade education and his was up to third grade, but they made it through and were even able to buy a Ford Model A to get around in. For all her children, Mrs. Hughes emphasized education and made sure they all went to school.

They were together for 61 years until his passing in 1999. They had nine children together, four of whom have passed away, and later welcomed a host of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Her oldest son, Howard, was born in 1939 and at 86 years of age still works pouring concrete. 

Her cooking skills are legendary and give the term “soul food” its meaning for the love she puts into it and the taste that deeply satisfies the tummy. Some of her favorites she still knows by heart are red velvet cake made with real extracts – “I don’t believe in this imitation stuff,” she says – gingerbread with raisins like her mom used to make, cornbread cooked on top of the stove, greens, molasses bread and many more. 

“All the youngsters said they loved to come visit and play with my children because I’d give everybody a square of bread or piece of cake,” she said. 

Today, Mrs. Hughes likes talking on the phone with family and friends, attending St. John’s Transformational Ministry International in Hilltop, and just enjoying her life at Comfort Pillar. Monicah Muita, who runs the house, has been in healthcare for more than 20 years. Muita is an expert at taking care of the elderly, cooking all their meals and attending to them with kindness and gentleness. She often joins Mrs. Hughes in prayer.

“Those who believe in God, there is a unique something in them,” Muita said. “When you know God and trust God, it makes a lot of things happen in one’s life.”

Mrs. Hughes’ daughter-in-law, Lydia Hughes, said Muita was, in fact, a godsend. Mrs. Hughes had been living with her daughter and when she passed away, a new home for Mrs. Hughes had to be found.

“She was our rescue,” Lydia said of Muita. “Within a week, we had to find a home and Monicah said, ‘I’ll take her.’”

Considering her long and blessed life, Mrs. Hughes has a few words of advice for everyone, especially the youth, who could use a bit of sage advice from a very wise woman.

Pausing to think for a moment, she simply said, “Do the best you can and don’t give up.”