How Mary Walker Learned to Read

The Oldest Student: 'How Mary Walker Learned to Read' by Rita Lorraine Hubbard, illustrated by Oge Mora published by Schwartz & Wade/Random 2020. 

In 1848, Mary Walker was born in Union Springs, Alabama, into slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation was signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 freeing her family from slavery, at twenty she was married and had her first child. Mary Walker was to marry twice and had three sons but had outlived her family by 1962 including a son who lived to be 94. 

Despite being illiterate she worked in many jobs including; as a cleaner and childminder. Then the extraordinary happened. In 1963 aged 115, she met a woman named Helen Kelly, a volunteer teacher for the Chattanooga Area Literacy Literacy Movement (CALM). Helen Kelly was an incredible teacher and by the time she was 116 years of age Mary Walker had learned to read. 

Mary died in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the USA on 1 December 1969, having survived slavery and a lifetime of discrimination, at the age of 121 years and 209 days.