La Plata woman celebrates 100th birthday
A house full of family and friends helped Geraldine Woodland of La Plata mark her 100th birthday on June 2.
Born in 1918 in Pomonkey, Woodland has spent all of her 100 years living in Charles County. With her late husband, Charles J. Woodland, who died in 1996 after they had been married more than 56 years, she raised an adopted family son, Larry, and two foster daughters, Georgianna Jones and Hattie Awale. The two daughters were at the birthday party, though Larry died in 1992.
“I didn’t do much,” Woodland said when asked about her life. Her family and friends begged to differ, though.
“She was active in the NAACP,” Hattie Awale said. “She was also an usher at the [Metropolitan United Methodist Church].”
Woodland was involved with the group’s Youth Council and helped chaperone the group at civil rights marches and events in the region in the tumultuous 1960s.
“We were in the big march in the ’60s when Martin Luther King [was in Washington]. Geraldine was our escort. We had the [NAACP] Youth Council from Charles County,” her nephew, Nolan Woodland of La Plata said, referring to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. That was the occasion he gave his “I Have A Dream” speech.
“She was very active in the NAACP,” Nolan said. “We used to go the Eastern Shore and various marches.”
While she worked as a custodian for about six years in the 1970s, three years at what was then La Plata Hospital and another three at the now closed Bel Alton High School, she spent most of her time taking care of family members, attending church and playing bingo.
“Momma loved bingo,” Georgianna Jones said.
“I used to go every Friday,” Geraldine added.
Her involvement with her Bryans Road church extended beyond ushering every Sunday.
“She was also an actress at Metropolitan United Methodist Church,” said fellow actress and cousin Everdene Jordan of Indian Head. “She almost made it to broadway. She made it as far as Montclair, New Jersey, for their 150th anniversary. They had our names running around on the marquee. She was an actress and she could always keep us laughing.
“We did that for five or six years. We stopped doing that in the beginning of the ’90s,” Jordan added. The productions were for dinner theater fundraisers.
The family planned to get her to church the day after her birthday so a large photograph of family and friends could be made, something for which she looked forward.
“I haven’t been to church the last three Sundays,” she said, “but I’m going tomorrow.”
Asked about her secret to longevity and what advice she could give to others, she said, “I don’t know. Just thank the Lord that you made it.”