Lessie Randle, the oldest living person in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, is celebrating her 112th birthday today in Tulsa.
Lessie Randle was born in Okmulgee County, Oklahoma, on 10 November 1914, to parents George Washington Benningfield and Katie May. She had had three sisters and one brother. Her parents were farmers, originally from Texas.
At the age of six, she witnessed the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921. She recalled people coming to their home and forcing them out. Her family walked toward Mohawk Park, and along the way, soldiers arrived in a bus and picked them up. They were taken to the fairgrounds, where she thought they might have spent the night. She had been with her grandmother when it happened, while her parents were still at their home in the country. The next morning, after the turmoil had settled, her father hitched up his wagon and team in Bixby. Upon hearing about the massacre, he and her mother rode into Tulsa in the wagon to check on the family…