Black History
FROM THE
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L OST N EIGHBORHOODS
Thressia Colbert: 100 Years of Helping Youth
By Helen Silvis
Of The Skanner News
Originally published Dec. 12, 2011
S
he was born in 1911. That’s the same
year as Gone with the Wind star But-
terfly McQueen, trumpet great Roy
“Little Jazz” Eldridge, and Negro League
baseball star Josh Gibson. Those famous
folks are long gone now, but at 100 years of
age Thressia Del Colbert is still going
strong.
“I consider her like the glue that holds our
family together,” says her nephew Willie
John Kelly, who is 76. “She helped our
whole family. Everything she did was posi-
tive.”
Born Nov. 28, 2011 in Linden, Texas,
Colbert was the oldest child of Augusta and
Willie Osborne Walton: farmers who grew
and sold cantaloupes, tomatoes, okra,
cucumbers, peppers and watermelon on 160
acres of land bought in 1898 and still owned
by the family. With chickens and cattle pro-
At 100 years of age Thressia Colbert is sharp as
a tack. She remembers Bonnie and and Clyde,
the Depression and the Vanport flood of 1948.
Many Portlanders remember Colbert as the
person who helped them get their first job
Ms. Colbert’s relatives and friends gath-
ered at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Saturday
Dec. 3, to celebrate her amazing life, and
testify that “Aunt Stell” has inspired four
generations of young people to work hard
and achieve.
For more about your neigh-
borhood go online to
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viding milk and meat, the family was
self-sufficient in food.
“We had the garden and we had every-
thing we needed,” Colbert says. “At that
time there were not many cars. The only car
you saw was the mailman. You saw horses,
mules and donkeys.”
When Colbert was just 8 years old, her
mother died of an undiagnosed illness.
“I had a brother and two sisters, and when
my mother passed I had to look after that lit-
tle crew,” she says. Col-
bert’s grandmother, Lila
Wilkins, worked for a well-
to-do family who lived at
2220 Grand Ave., Dallas.
She remembers the address
because she was the one in
the family who wrote the
letters. Her grandmother
often sent care packages to
help the family.
“We were some of the
best-dressed little kids in
that town,” she says.
In 1935, Colbert went to
Houston and worked as a
janitor for Sears Roebuck so
that she could attend Hous-
ton College. That’s where
she met her husband,
Andrew Colbert, a football
player. Colbert says she was
astounded by how much the
other students ate. “I never
knew people to eat like
this.”
Thressia Del Colbert
See THRESSIA page 10
February 22, 2012 The Portland and Seattle Skanner v BLACK HISTORY EDITION v Page 9