LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The year 1917 was known as the year that changed the world. America was preparing to enter into a World War, Woodrow Wilson was president, and the Charleston was the latest dance craze.
It was also the year a Louisville woman who would defy all expectations was born.
Ada Mucker Rondo was born in Guston, Kentucky, in 1917.
"I liked to play outdoors in the country," said Rondo.
Ada Mucker Rondo celebrated her 107th birthday on Sunday, May 12, 2024. Here she is pictured with her five siblings. (Family photo)
She had five sisters and remembers her parents fondly.
"They were just good," she said. "My father was a carpenter my mother was just a home wife and dealt with the children."
Rondo began writing down her life story in 2001. In her writings, she shares that her beloved grandmother was half Cherokee and a former slave.
She wrote about being forced to ride in the back of a city bus, and facing discrimination as a Black woman in Kentucky.
Sunday, her big family celebrated Rondo and all of that history on her 107th birthday.
"We're running out of ways to celebrate her and honor her, but this year we're still going to have another party and celebrate her as best we can," Lauren Rondo, Ada's granddaughter, said.
Ada Mucker Rondo celebrated her 107th birthday on Sunday, May 12, 2024. (Family photo)
Lauren is Ada's caretaker, and has many of her own memories.
"We would take road trips. Coming home, she would have dinner ready," she said. "She loved to cook when I was younger. She still thinks that she can, but we just don't let her."
All these years later, Ada still loves playing dominoes, getting her hair and nails done, and eating cheese grits for breakfast.
"She loves to sleep in," Lauren Rondo said. "Once she's up she's ready, she's ready for her breakfast, she's ready to watch 'Let's Make a Deal,' she loves Wayne Brady."
Ada almost passed away from COVID in 2020, but has outlived her husband, all of her siblings, two of her children and even a grandchild.Â
"She and my aunt, her daughter, were sick at the same time " Lauren Rondo said.
Her daughter ended up passing away. It's a loss she still grapples with.
Ada Mucker Rondo celebrated her 107th birthday on Sunday, May 12, 2024. She poses for a photo here with her granddaughter, Lauren Rondo. (WDRB photo)
When asked just how she made it past 100, Ada said the secret is biblical.
"Honor thy father and thy mother, that their days may be long upon the land which that God giveth thee," she said.
Lauren Rondo said that her grandmother's long life has given her a lesson in living from a living legend at 107.
"Be thankful that everyday is not promised but since we're here we just have to live our best life," she said.
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