Bethune, SC -(WLTX) - There was a celebration of life this weekend in Bethune as a great grandmother of 5 celebrated her 105th birthday.
Tambourines were played and songs were sang as friends and family came from all over to celebrate Lula Mae Dyers remarkable birthday milestone at the Sandy Level Baptist Church in Bethune. She's been a member for 90 years.
Mae Dyers takes nothing for granted. "You just feel good that the Lord allowed you to live this long,' she says. "I thank the Lord for life health and strength."
Stephanie Dyers, the granddaughter of the matriarch of the family, shares that her grandmother has a strength and a faith that is unmatched by anyone she knows. That faith has brought the 105 year-old through a life of ups and downs, from a near death experience last year that took three pints of blood from her body to the gruesome era of Jim Crow. Her family says that her convictions in a higher power has helped her withstand the test of time.
Her granddaughter says, "Through it all she still never said not one bad word in my whole life I've never heard her say one bad word about anybody or anything she grew up in and what she came through." She goes on to say, "She is an inspiration to so any of us..especially those of us in the black race. Se helped lead desegregation in this area of Bethune. She's a leader."