A local woman not only celebrated good health on Thursday, but she also celebrated 106 years of life.
Dorothy Southall was born in Whaleyville — a small neighborhood in Suffolk on Sept. 5, 1918. That’s two years before women received the right to vote and two months before the end of World War I.
Watch: Loved ones sing Happy Birthday to Norfolk woman celebrating 106th birthday
Loved ones sing Happy Birthday to Norfolk woman celebrating 106th birthday
Not long after the war, Southall and her father moved to Pennsylvania during the First Great Migration, also known as the Black Migration, which involved 6,000,000 African Americans traveling from the south to the western and northern regions for better opportunities.
Sentara Health Throughout her life, Dorothy has seen and lived through historical events such as the attack on Pearl Harbor when she was just 23, and when the Civil Rights Movement was just gaining momentum in 1959.
During the Civil Rights Movement, Dorothy worked as a licensed practical nurse at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York. She served her community as a healthcare worker for 20 years before moving back to Virginia in the late 1980s where she would live on her own and manage her own finances until she was 103.