Plant City Resident Celebrates 105th Birthday

By Cheryl Johnston

Hillsborough County celebrated former schoolteacher Leola McDonald’s 105th birthday on January 27, 2023, at the Plant City Senior Center on Waller Street. Leola was also honored the next day on WTSP television, Channel 10 Tampa Bay.

A few days prior on January 17, the petite Bealsville resident enjoyed her actual birthday celebration when family, neighbors, Antioch Missionary Baptist Church members, and former students offered a drive-by salute at her home on Branch Wood Road.

In the red suit and lace-trimmed blouse she wore on Friday, the lovely Leola enjoyed the company of even more well-wishers at the Senior Center when county employees presented her with more flowers, cards and gifts. “Queen,” as she’s also known, even offered a song or two along with her beautiful smile.

Born to Sam and Lilly Berry on January 17, 1918, Leola spent most of her life, other than her college years, at the home on Branch Wood Road. She is related to Mary Reddick, one of the twelve freed slaves who established the close-knit Bealsville community in 1865.

After earning a cosmetology degree from Bethune Cookman College and an education degree from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes (now FAMU), Leola taught in Polk County schools for twelve years and then 25 years teaching third and fourth graders at the historic Glover School and J.S. Robinson Elementary. Interestingly, Leola had also returned to Bethune Cookman as a hairdresser for a time to Mary McLeod Bethune. She and husband Eli McDonald had one son, the late Chris Bernard McDonald.

As the grandchild of a slave and a Confederate soldier, education and faith have always been important priorities for this youngat-heart educator. The oldest living teacher to have taught in Bealsville is also proud to be an

African-American woman in the Daughters of the Confederacy.

Veronica Fisher, director of the Plant City Senior Center, welcomed guests who came to enjoy birthday cupcakes and photo ops with one of her favorite “active and feisty” regular attenders. Fisher, who is also related to Leola, shared that in addition to teaching school, the registered Democrat served 22 years as a Pink Lady with the South Florida Baptist Hospital’s Women’s Auxillary. Despite two hip surgeries, Leola remains in good health.

Joyce Horton, her caregiver for the last seven years, remembered Leola as her teacher in grades three and four. At Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, Leola was a singer and director of vacation Bible school and children’s plays. She is “pure love,” said Horton.

Henrietta Broadnax Fleming visits Leola often and remembers her as a “great teacher, community leader, and best friend to my mother, Mabel.”

Everyone enjoyed hearing Leola at her celebration and her attentive great-grandson, Chris McDonald, Jr., was pleased to see the family’s matriarch “being so loved and looking so beautiful.”

This was a party to remember, for sure!