By Kareta Williams

Mattie L. Lovett is going to be 102 years old on July 21. Born in Arkansas, she migrated to Las Vegas, Nevada, and then to San Francisco, California in the 1940s and has since been a resident of Oakland.

She raised all of her children in West Oakland on 18th street before moving to 68th Avenue in East Oakland where she has lived since July 1970. In her early career, Mattie was a maid, becoming an instructional assistant for the Oakland Unified School District in the 1960s, ’70s and early ’80s. She retired at the age of 62 in 1983.

Affectionately known as Mrs. Lovett, she worked at Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary as well as Cole Elementary. Her youngest daughter as well as several of her grandchildren attended MLK while she was working there, and this writer was one of them.

She is and has been well liked, and there are still a few teachers who worked in those schools who love to hear that she is doing well. She also worked at Del Monte and Stokeley Brothers’ canneries in East Oakland and she introduced us to Gatorade — we hated it then (LOL).

We are very grateful to God that she is still here with us and thriving. She has outlived three of her six children: three of her grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. By her side are daughters Brenda, Doris, and Geraldine; her 11 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren and 23 great-great grandchildren.

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