Flatbushite Celebrates 100th Birthday
Families members from across the country joined Ivory Lee Burns for her 100th birthday party in April. (Photo: Tina Shuford)
By Jack Delaney | jdelaney@queensledger.com
FLATBUSH — Last weekend, a longtime Flatbush resident rang in her 100th birthday with a party that drew dozens of family members from hours away.
“I enjoyed it from beginning to end,” says Ivory Lee Burns, the guest of honor. “I’m just laying right here thinking about it. Everything came out so beautiful.”
Burns moved to Brooklyn in her 30s from Far Rockaway, though she was born in South Carolina. When you ask her where, exactly, she laughs: “Now you’re asking me to go way way back.”
Burns worked for decades as a cleaner, getting to the job at 9 a.m. and leaving at 5 p.m. to return home to her eight kids. She credits three forces with shaping her century on this planet: work, parenting, and God.
“I lived a long life by tending to my business and working and taking care of my family and coming home and feeding my kids and going to sleep and, God bless me, getting up the next morning to do the same thing all over again,” explains Burns.
“I think it keeps you together,” she says of that routine. “You don’t have to work yourself to death, it just keeps your mind together.”
Four of Burns’ children have passed away, but her grandchildren — including Tina Shuford — were in attendance for the big event on Saturday.
Shuford remembers spending summers in Flatbush with her grandmother when she was growing up. Now based in Hempstead, Long Island, where she founded the local advocacy group All the Way 100 Percent, Shuford believes those early months molded her for the better.
“I love everything about my grandmother,” Shuford says. “She disciplined me very well, and even to this day she disciplines me. I’ve always had a mouth, but I learned how to use it wisely. I know how to use it another way to be strong, to show people and educate them within our communities.”
The oldest Brooklynite on record was Susannah Mushat Jones, a 117-year old resident of East New York who lived from 1899 to 2016. Incredibly, she was the last American born in the 19th century.
Could Burns give her a run for her money?
“I ain’t going anywhere til the good Lord gets ready for me,” said Burns. “He brought me here, and he’s going to take me when he’s ready.”