Mattie Shavers Johnson celebrated her 104th birthday this past weekend.

To help put that into perspective, she was born in 1920, merely 35 years before Marvin Pynes school was built.

Friends and family gathered from near and far to commemorate this life celebration.

Johnson was born to Robert S. Shavers and Laura Garland Shavers in the Garland Community of De Kalb, Texas, the eighth of 11 children.

She is Smithie’s, Effie, James North Garland’s neice of DeKalb, Texas. All were born in the Garland (Booker- town) community. Laura Garland Shavers was Mattie Shavers Johnson’s mother.

Lorenzo Shavers, Helen Shavers Jackson, Fred Shavers Sr., Mildred Shavers Kington, Myrtle Shavers Downs, Millie Shavers Collins, Jenna Shavers Benton, Col. Iverson Shavers, Dr. James Polk Shavers and Pearl Shavers Sands, were her siblings.

No family member (late 1700s -slave owners (John Calhoun Garland) or other until now) in the entire family history has ever reached this lofty plateau.

Mattie Shavers Johnson currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

She has accomplished an extraordinary amount of work as an educater, lecturer, author, poet and musician. However, her current work resides in writing and serving her community.

She and the late Charles W. Johnson Sr. M.D were blessed with three beautiful children: Charles William Jr., Phillip Noel, Dr. Livette Suzanne Johnson.

Johnson is a God-fearing woman and says that God gives her a new song to sing as she opens her window in praise every morning.