Malverne resident celebrates 100 years

Malverne resident Gertrude McCord Ramsey Lewis celebrated her 100th birthday at the American Legion Post #44 Hall in Malverne on March 30.

Lewis received citations and personal well wishes from Nassau County Legis. Fran Becker and Malverne Mayor Patricia McDonald. She also received letters of recognition from Nassau County Legis. Kevan Abrahams, State Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.

On April 1, 1914, Lewis was born Gertrude McCord in Norwood, Warren County, Ga., to Laura (née Harding) and Roney McCord. She spent the earlier years of her life with her older siblings Joseph, Hershel, Willie, and Gladys in Macon and later in Thomson, Ga.
At age 14, McCord met Tommie (Tommy) L. Ramsey, whom she married two years later on December 28, 1930. The Ramseys later welcomed their three children Gardner, Lamar, and Alvera. In May 1936, Tommie was shot and killed after being pulled over by police for speeding.

In 1939, Gertrude Ramsey left her children with her mother in Georgia to find employment at an agency in New York, where she later became a live-in domestic for the Usiskin family of Lawrence.

On July 29, 1941, Ramsey married her second husband, James M. Lewis, also from Thomson, Ga., and began performing odd jobs as a watch case maker and in the laundry business before working at Pennsylvania Rail Road. She eventually sent for her three children to live with her in Manhattan, but had no other children with her second husband, who died in the 1990s.

Lewis later sought training for a telephone operator position with Ma Bell/New York Telephone Company (NYNEX) in 1949 until she retired in 1976.

She also became a member of The Greater Allen AME Church, the NYNEX-affiliated organization the Pioneers, the Queens Village Civic Association, the Hollis Avenue Senior Citizens’ Club, and the SNAP Organization, a senior citizens group.

Lewis has lived in a range of places, from Washington Heights to Chicago, Ill.

Today, Lewis lives with her son Lamar and his wife, Willa, in Malverne. She has one surviving brother, Ronnie McCord of Ga., three children — Gardner Ramsey of New York City, Lamar Ramsey of Malverne and Alvera Kirtley of Chicago, Ill. — 10 grandchildren, 17 great grandchildren, and 15 great-great grandchildren.