“I am Eddye L. Williams. I was born in Port City Tampa, Florida, in the year 1900.”

Those words aren’t found in the archived oral history of a former DC resident, hidden somewhere in Martin Luther King Library. Those words are very much alive, rolling on the sonorous, sermonizing voice of the city’s oldest living resident, Eddye Williams, who turned 108 last month.

Williams came to DC during Harry S. Truman’s first term as President, in search, she says, “of something [she] could not find in Florida.” But Williams’ experience working as a government clerk didn’t live up to her expectations.

Instead, in her sixty years as a Washingtonian, Williams has worked as a maid, a seamstress, a custodian and, ultimately, a nurse. But as a black woman in a segregated city, Williams confronted and surmounted many difficulties in those positions, bolstered always by her faith in God and by the community at Metropolitan AME Zion Church, where she is still a member. As far as Williams is concerned, her story begins and ends with her faith. When she recounts the litany of her life experiences, it is infused with a strength of faith that she cannot live without—a strength that she credits with sustaining her through 108 years of life.

“Life sometimes is hard,” she says. “And don’t think I haven’t had it hard, because I’ve had it hard. But did I cry? No. I said to God, ‘Now is your time to prove you are God’.”

At one point in her life, Williams was a nurse for an elderly, wealthy white woman. In spite of that woman’s privileges, she was astounded by the joy Williams exuded, and repeatedly asked her what made her so happy.

“‘Here’s this colored woman who doesn’t have anything,’” Williams recalls her former patient saying. “ ‘I’ve got everything. Why is she so happy?’ ‘Your mind rules your body. Mind over body.’ That’s what I told her. You can decide to be sad, or you can decide to be happy.”

Williams’ mind has always been firmly planted in what makes her happy. That includes writing poetry, singing, dancing, visiting with friends and family, reading her Bible and sewing—a lifelong love. And with her days now mostly restricted to a bed in her Ward 5 home, Williams’ strikingly keen wit and clear thinking still enable her to find fulfillment in the pursuit that pleases her most: bringing happiness to others. Although she is mistress of the pluck and brazen honesty that is the privilege of wisdom and years, Williams is also tender in her love for others.

“The biggest thing I enjoy is when I make somebody happy,” she says. “I love that. If I can see you smile, I’m happy. . . I can’t stand ugly. Kindness is everything. When you hate, you hurt yourself. When you’re all broken up, you hurt yourself. It takes the beauty from the whole body. Be kind. Be sweet. It’s not gonna hurt you. If you have to be one thing, be sweet. . . Love takes care of everything.”

Williams’ love is not lost on friends, family or even strangers. At her Jan. 4 birthday party, she sits in her bed like a queen, bedecked in gold earrings and a tiara, her fingers covered in rings (“She still rolls her hair by herself!” whispers friend and former caregiver, Martha Rector). Throngs of reporters and photographers crowd in to gather a snippet about what life was like 70 years ago, or to catch a characteristic witticism (when asked what the best part of her birthday was, Williams answers, “Me!”). Eventually Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. arrives at her bedside with Mayor Adrian Fenty. They officially pronounce the day to be her day, and each give her a birthday kiss. Williams receives the attention graciously, waving from her bed like royalty.

“She is a queen,” says Frances Carter, one of Williams’ many friends who stand behind all the reporters and television cameras, smiling and damp-eyed. “She’s our queen.”

Williams has a heart full of love, a soul full of faith and a life full of years.

“It’s a beautiful life. And who made it that way?” Williams points to each of her guests. “You, you and you. I love people.”