By Sheryl Estrada
Emma Didlake
In 1943, Emma Didlake, a 38-year-old Black woman, the wife of a coalminer and mother of five kids, living in Lynch, Ky., decided she wanted to serve her country. So she joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps without telling her husband, Oscar.
“There wasn’t no argument or anything like that, it was no trouble,” she told the San Antonio Express News in March. “I just did it.” Didlake said she joined because “I wanted to do different things.”
Known to her family as “Big Mama,” she died Sunday morning at the age of 110 in West Bloomfield, Mich., which is northwest of Detroit.Didlake was named the oldest U.S. veteran based on information collected by Honor Flight representatives. According to the Associated Press, Allen Bergeron, chairman of Honor Flight Austin, said the national network has not found an older veteran.
On July 17, Talons Out Honor Flight, a division of the national Honor Flight Network, flew Didlake and her granddaughter, Marilyn Horne, to Washington, D.C., to visit President Obama and tour the war memorials.
“It was a month ago today that we went to the White House, a month ago today,” Horne, 62, said on Monday. “I think she felt she had accomplished everything and could take her rest.”
See a video of Didlake’s trip to Washington, D.C. in July:
“We are honored to have spent the day with Big Mama,” Talons Out Honor Flight President Bobbie Bradley said in a statement. “Our hearts are heavy to have to say goodbye. However, in the short time we spent with her, Miss Emma impacted our group and we’re so proud to have had the chance to honor her.”
During World War II, Didlake served stateside for approximately seven months as a private and driver. Sheand her family moved to Detroit in 1944. Didlake joined the city’s NAACP chapter and in 1963 marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. She was the chapter’s longest serving member.
In 2013, U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi awarded Didlake the James Weldon Johnson lifetime achievement award at the Detroit NAACP’s 58th Annual Freedom Fund Dinner.
During times of segregation in the South and resistance to women serving in the military, Didlake still prevailed.
“I didn’t know I was breaking barriers,”said the native of Greene County, Ala. born March 13, 1905. “But I enjoyed doing what I was doing because I had committed myself to do just this.”
The White House shared President Obama’s statement regarding Didlake on Twitter:
“Emma Didlake served her country with distinction and honor, a true trailblazer for generations of Americans” @POTUS pic.twitter.com/J3A8svtOiE
The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 17, 2015
