101 years of faith and working hard to build a life

At 101 years old, Alma Ross is fully alert to Philly happenings, but her memories span growing up in the South, moving to Philadelphia, and all her “blessings”: her daughter, Sharon; her church life and work life, and her commitment to helping people in the neighborhood community.

Her life story begins in South Carolina.

“I was born in South Bend [Bennettsville] South Carolina. 1921. October 22 1921.” ...

“I had to work hard to get where I am now. I had to work hard. I didn’t have a good life. I have grandparents. … My parents separated when I was 2 years old. My [parents] separated. And my grandmother, my father’s mother, raised me and [then] my grandfather died. And she married again. … And we had to work hard. I had to work hard in my life. I have no silver spoon in my mouth. I had a hard way … in my life.”

Ross’s early life revolved around farming.

“Yeah, I had to work on a farm and pick cotton and corn, corn ... and … everything we had, we had to raise it. … We had to go to the market and we had to grow everything [pigs] … cows, I had to feed [the] mule, the cow, the home, the chickens, and everything that I had, we had to do that to survive. So that was my lifetime. And going to school.”

For Ross, there were household obligations to fulfill before school. On the way to school, she and the other Black children withstood racist taunts and provocations.

“I used to have to get up in the morning and make a … fire, big heater and lay down behind the stove until it gets hot. And then I had to make breakfast before went to school with my brother and everybody. … I had to make breakfast before I went to school. And we had to go to school. The white children went [to] one school and we went to another neighborhood on a bus. We … had to walk to school and [white children] would pass right by us on the street and go ... they spit out the window [and] call us black, black mud, we call them red clay.”

The segregation extended beyond school, of course.

“We [had] to walk five miles to school and walk back. Every now and [then] they went to different schools and different churches and different school. We didn’t go to the same school, whether racism and they could come to our church, but we weren’t allowed to go to their church. That was what I remember being down South Carolina and growing up as a child.

After Ross got married, she left South Carolina and came to Philadelphia. She gave birth to a child, which she lost.

“As I got married I was 21. Yeah, I came here. Sept. 23. On Labor Day on the first day of September. ... When I came here, I went to 2417 Master Street and my mother had lived there and I went to live with her. I bought this house in ‘65. And I’ve been here ever since it was a duplex.”

Ross described life on the 1900 block of North Van Pelt Street as very different from now.

“[T]his whole block was people livin’ … not no vacant house or no [vacant] lot. All these lots were filled up with family with children. But now it’s like a ghost house now. … All of the children is gone and married and gone wherever. But not one child in this block. ...

“Sometimes I get lonely because I look around even Halloween. No children come to pick up no candy and nothing. Nobody rang my bell. But that’s kind of lonely. You know for me. Being by myself.”

Ross said if she could, she’d offer young people this message: “Stop using drugs and stop using the guns and [you] shouldn’t be killing people. … I would tell them to go to church … .”

Ross said that her faith, along with her friends, has been instrumental in helping her surmount the challenges that African Americans experience in Philadelphia.

“I was always involved in churches. And I’ve always had a lot of friends … whatever church I go to. I always had a lot of friends. … I was a Baptist before I came here. I was a Baptist. When I join Catholic Church when I had that adopted this child that died couple of years ago. I adopted her. She went to Catholic school.”

Ross became a Catholic in part due to her adopted daughter, Sharon, attending Catholic school.

“Because of her that’s why I decided to because she was going to St. E’s [St. Elizabeth] kindergarten. So I decided because she was baptized and everything.”

Once Sharon graduated from St. Elizabeth, Ross wanted her to attend William Penn High School, but her daughter wanted to go to Strawberry Mansion High School.

“I went and bought all of these things for and she ended up she didn’t want to go, she wanted to go to Strawberry Mansion. So that’s where she went. Then she went back to William Penn. And she dropped out. I think about 10th grade or something, she jumped out of it.”

Ross and her daughter had a taxing relationship at times, due to Sharon’s health challenges, which included juvenile diabetes. Because Ross had become an LPN (licensed practical nurse), she cared for Sharon and saw that she got therapy. Sometimes, she felt as if her daughter hated her — even though the medical professionals treating her daughter told her otherwise.

“I never changed. I took her from the hospital where she was 9 days old. … But she had juvenile diabetes. And … she went into a coma when she was 9 years old. She went into a coma. And she went they took her to … Women’s Medical Hospital. And she stayed in [a] coma on for four days and I sat beside her bed for four days. ….

“I cared for [her and] loved her to death. ... She hated me. But she loved my mother, she loved her.”

Neither caring for her daughter nor working an 11 to 7 shift at St. John Newman Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare on Roosevelt Boulevard deterred Ross from helping others in the neighborhood. The Murphy family continues to call her every night after she helped them out, and her goddaughter, Marlene, has lived with her for more than 15 years. Her generosity is acknowledged to extend beyond people.

“[The president of the Martin Luther King Senior Center] used to say anybody don’t have no place to go, to go to Alma house. She take care of rats, raccoons, possums …” [laughter]

Ross says that although her life “wasn’t a bowl of cherries, it was a big pile of bricks.” It has also brought her joy.

“I lived to be one hundred and one years old. [Laughter] Wouldn’t that be joy?”

Listen to Alma Ross’s recollections in full below or click here.

Moving to Philadelphia from the South

St. Elizabeth