NORFOLK, Va. – Lela Burden finally received her high school diploma. The 111-year-old Norfolk woman lightly clapped just before she was handed her diploma this week.
Burden is delightfully sharp. She remembers nearly everything about her time in school.
Schools were temporarily shut down in 1918 for a flu pandemic, by that time the teenage Burden was working two jobs and never went back to finish her education.
Decades of rich life experience taught her more than most learn in two lifetimes.
“Not any different,” she said on how she feels about being one of the world’s oldest women. “Still have your aches and pains but thank God I’m still alive.”
Burden was born in 1903 and “should” have graduated in 1921.
Don’t remember 1921?
Warren Harding was President of the United States and that year the U.S. officially ended World War I.
