Dorothy Southall just celebrated her 106th birthday, a year after she was released from hospice because she was considered “too healthy” to meet the conditions. WTKR reports that Southall was born on September 5, 1918, in Whaleyville, a small neighborhood in Suffolk, two years before women were granted the right to vote and two months before World War I ended.
Following the war, Southall and her father relocated to Pennsylvania as part of the First Great Migration, popularly referred to as the Black Migration, which saw 6,000,000 African Americans leave the south and migrate to the North and West in search of better opportunities.
Southall has witnessed and experienced historical moments all her life, including the attack on Pearl Harbor when she was only 23 and the Civil Rights Movement in 1959.
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She worked as a licensed practical nurse at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York during the Civil Rights Movement, serving her community for 20 years before moving back to Virginia in the late 1980s, where she would live independently and handle her own finances until the age of 103.
Southall stayed under Karen Spencer’s care following a fall resulting in an emergency room visit. Spencer provided her and her family with a wealth of resources, including care coordination and navigation. In August 2023, Southall was discharged from hospice because she was seen to be “too healthy.”
In honor of her 106th birthday last Thursday, Southhall wore a tiara and celebrated with family and friends at the residential care facility where she currently resides.
When asked what advice she would give younger generations, she replied, “You’ve just got to go with it.”
