Help Support A 99 yr old former Vanport Resident

Photo by: Meredith Lawrence

If you are looking for a meaningful way to celebrate Black History Month and you are in the Portland area, join a community celebration for Mrs. Thelma Glover's 99th birthday, on Sunday 19th, 3pm, at the historic Billy Webb Elks Lodge in Portland. You can still honor her from afar, by contributing to a crowd fund to help paying her medical bills. She lives by herself, and recently suffered a fall.

Ms.Thelma, as she prefers to be called since it makes her feel young, is a former Vanport resident. Last October we captured her memories as part of our on-going oral history project, and since she expressed the wish to see some photos of the city where she and her husband started their life together in 1943, we brought her the whole exhibit "Vanport: The Surge of Social Change" we co-curated with Oregon Black Pioneers for last year Vanport Mosaic Festival! Watch her story, Step By Step, and you will understand why everyone falls in love with this remarkable lady.

There is more to her story, of course. She is one of the last-living people who were displaced by the Emmanuel Hospital expansion (that was never realized...) in 1970s. The Oregonian recently published a great article and video about this painful chapter of her life. Check out the article HERE !

Did we mention there is a crowd funding initiative for Ms. Thelma?

The Vanport Mosaic Team