Mrs. Joanna Eva Coleman George, 104 today, sports a red bonnet and a coral and blue floral morning robe, as her nurse, Josephine, wheels her into the elegant living room at her daughter's Hotel Africa home.
A hot pink shawl covers her long, slender legs, and Josephine props up her feet on a sage and gold upholstered stool to keep her circulation flowing. Having had her afternoon nap, she will be seated upright for a good while this afternoon. Her daughter, Mrs. Mornjay Olivia George Pratt, has called in the Daily Observer for a pre-birthday chat with the post-centennarian.
A Coleman Scioness
Joanna is excited. "Next week Tuesday, I'll be 104," she says more than twice, her shining brown eyes illuminating a slim, remarkably smooth face. "On December 9th, she'll be 104," Mornjay specifies.
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The family had celebrated Joanna's hundredth birthday with a bash at the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Ministerial Complex in 2021. This year, they want to reflect on and document her story, "because you never know..." Mornjay says solemnly, gazing off into the inevitable future.
Mornjay acknowledges, though, that getting any stories out of her mother will be a challenge. She is hard of hearing now, understanding us only when Josephine translates our questions smilingly into her left ear.
The years have also faded Joanna's memory. She can recall but a few things, as Mornjay and we prod her with gentle questions. But one thing is sure; she is proud of her illustrious Liberian heritage.
"I was a Coleman," she begins. "President Coleman's granddaughter. That's how old I am." "She's the oldest living granddaughter of William David Coleman and his fifth wife, Ophelia Thomson Coleman," says Mornjay, picking up the thread.
Coleman was Liberia's thirteenth President, serving from 1896 to 1900. Like his predecessor, tenth President Alfred F. Russel, he was born in Fayette County, Kentucky, in the United States of America. Coleman was several times a widower when he met Ophelia, who had come to Liberia from Arkansas, USA, in 1895. The pair were married from 1896 until Ophelia's death in 1898. They had two sons, Joseph Samuel, who died at an early age, and Moses Oliver, their youngest, who became a diplomat in the State Department.
"When her father, Moses Oliver Coleman, was born, President Coleman was still in office," Mornjay continued. "When her grandmother Ophelia died, President Coleman married Joanna Eva Howard, who raised her father. Her mother was Mary Deborah "M.D." Carter." M.D. was the daughter of James David Carter and Cora Wardworth-Carter.
An International Upbringing
Joanna Coleman was born in 1921, up the St. Paul River, in her mother's native White Plains. Remaining in those rural parts until the age of eight, she attended the Cyril Henries School, founded by a professor of the same name, whose family had migrated from Barbados in 1865. Henries also taught at the White Plains Methodist Mission.
At the age of seven, Joanna received her first taste of the tragedy that had so often struck the Coleman family. In 1929, she lost her father, Moses Oliver. At 31 years old, he left behind Joanna and her siblings, Joseph Samuel Oliver, Ophelia, Claudia A. Coleman Nelson, and Elaine Thomas-Moore, and his beloved M.D. It would be 27 years before his widow gave her hand to another. In 1956, she bestowed that honor on one Rev. S.R.E. Dixon, a Methodist.
Solace came with a grand foray into Europe for the little girl. Her paternal grandmother and namesake, Mrs. Joanna Eva Howard Coleman, had taken ill and wished the child to accompany her to Germany. There, she would seek extensive medical treatment. The stepmother of Joanna's father, Mrs. Coleman was the then former President's last wife.
The affectionate pair would remain in Germany for two years, staying with Joanna's Godfather, the Honorable Momolu Massaquoi, then Liberia's Ambassador to the Federal Republic. Not then attending school, the child's primary concern was playing companion to her grandmother. She charmed everyone she met with her vivacious spirit and love of dancing.
In 1934, the Colemans returned to Monrovia, thus ending Joanna's long educational hiatus. She joined her brother, the now late Hon. Joseph Samuel Oliver Coleman, at the Lott Carey Baptist Mission School, foreshadowing a dedication to the Baptist tradition that would form the greater part of her adult life. Mr. William Thomas led the Brewerville-based school at that time.
In 1936, Joanna crossed the northern border. "I went to school in Freetown, Sierra Leone," Coleman proclaimed, in another brief stroke of memory.
"St. Joseph's Convent," Mornjay added. "Then, when the war broke out in the '40s, they brought them back." This suggests there was more than one young Coleman sent to board in Freetown before World War II.
Back in Monrovia, Joanna finished her education at Liberia College - now the University of Liberia - graduating in 1942.
Stewarding African Migration and Development
Now a young woman and budding professional, Joanna joined the Bureau of Immigration, then led by Mr. Toweh Williams of Browerville. There, she served as a registrar, helping steward the latest wave of Black transatlantic return.
The heat of the Second World War was a dangerous time to set sail for anywhere, let alone Africa. But the Caribbean immigrants Coleman served, notably from Jamaica and Haiti, were following suit from their own compatriots, as well as freed Blacks from the United States of America (Joanna's own forebears included), the United Kingdom, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago, who had sought self-determination on Africa's western coast since Freetown's founding in 1792.
Serendipitous as it would be, Joanna's office and the then Department of the Interior were situated on a hill at the corner of Ashmun and Lynch Streets, which now houses the historic E.J. Roye Building. That plot overlooks Providence Island - the very spot where the story of Africa's first Republic began.
That stint lasted about three years. Coleman was transferred to the Bureau of Labor in 1945 and served a year there as a clerk typist under Chief Clerk A.T. Appleton and Commissioner Abraham Ricks.
History called again, in '47, to reward Joanna for her diligent service. She was asked to support Rev. G.W. Gibson of the Episcopal Church as secretary-typist on a temporary assignment. Then-President William V.S. Tubman had appointed him Chairman of the Republic of Liberia Centennial Committee.
Under Gibson's leadership, the Committee choreographed a rich and varied series of events commensurate with Liberia's global significance as Africa's first, and the world's second, Black republic. The celebration lasted from July 24th to August 13th. Besides solemn memorial ceremonies for fallen signers of the Declaration of Independence, sporting events, military and cultural displays, the program featured the unveiling of the Centennial Pavilion and the opening of the brand-new Port of Monrovia, paid for by the United States of America.
The centennial drew dignitaries from around the world. Leading the United States' appropriately historic delegation was General Benjamin O. Davis Sr., the first African American general in the U.S. Army, who had a special connection to Liberia. Davis had served as the U.S. Military Attaché here in 1909, training Liberian troops.
In 1943, he served as military aide to then-outgoing President Edwin Barclay and Tubman during a state visit to the United States. Davis' son, General Benjamin O. Davis Jr., also made history as the first African American general in the U.S. Air Force and Commander of the WWII Tuskegee Airmen. Tubman awarded Davis the elder the Grade of Commander of the Order of the Star of Africa.
As a final flourish to mark the occasion, Tubman commissioned a musical piece. Still recognized today for its beauty and complexity, it is a nine-movement opus with one vocal part. The Liberia Suite, as it is called, was composed by one of the greatest names in Jazz. None other than Duke Ellington himself.
Becoming a Wife
The centennial ceremonies at an end, Tubman dissolved the Committee with thanks for its high success. Joanna then joined the Department of Agriculture, where she was promoted to Chief Typist, serving then Secretary Johnny Cooper himself. With that move came another full-circle moment. Her new office at the intersection of Broad and Gurley Streets was adjacent to the Executive Grounds, the presidential residence where her father had been born.
The Department moved to its own building at 5th Street in Sinkor, and Joanna served there with Stepen A. Tolbert, then Chief of the Division of Forestry. A successful businessman and the brother of Tubman's successor, William R. Tolbert, Jr., he would later become Tubman's Secretary of Agriculture, then his brother's Finance Minister, and thereafter remain a polarizing figure in pre-war Liberia. As a second-class Civil Servant herself, Joanna made a mere $25.00 a month.
From a young age, she had dedicated her life to the Christian faith. A born Methodist, Joanna was baptized at the First United Methodist Church on Coleman Hill. Ashmun Street, where the parish stands, seems a common thread tying together so much of her personal story. As an adult, Joanna taught the parish's Sunday school and sang in the choir.
Then, in 1946, lightning doubtless struck. The 24-year-old Ms. Coleman met and married the Cllr. Rev. Peter Amos George, Sr., who hailed from River Cess Territory and Grand Bassa County.
Today, she hardly remembers their courtship or its context, as Mornjay tries to tease a romantic story or two out of her. "Tell us about your husband. Ehn that was the love of your life?"
"You tell them," Mrs. George quips back. "Ehn that was your Pa?" Her wit has yet to fail her.
Rev. George was a Baptist. And he took his new bride a block up the hill to Providence Baptist Church, at the top of Center Street.
So expanded a quintessential Monrovia family. Nearly 13 children blessed the Georges' union, among them two sets of twins. Nine survived. By the birth of the seventh child in the 1960s, Rev. George thought it was time Joanna retired from civil service and managed the family full-time. She did so and was a wonderful mother, Mornjay says.
Staunchly religious yet loving, Joanna was the more lenient parent, as is common. But she was unquestionably a disciplinarian and ran a tight ship. "There were ten of us girls," Mornjay recalls. "She paired us off two-by-two, and taught us to cook and clean." She was a perfectionist, meticulously clean and efficient. For better or worse, she had the time to be.
An Enterprising Spirit
A diligent homebody, as her daughter describes her, Joanna threw herself into homemaking. But her retirement had cut the household's income by fifty percent. Serving under Secretary Gabriel Dennis at the State Department, Rev. George was making one cent less than Joanna had, at $24.99 a month. Not nearly enough for the number of mouths the Georges had to feed.
And they were many mouths indeed, beyond those born of Joanna's womb. "While growing up," Mornjay recalls, "at no point in time were we less than fourteen or fifteen in the home. How they did it, I don't know."
To save money, Joanna sewed the children's clothes, including their school uniforms. Then, to supplement her husband's salary, she began baking bread for sale. "She'd get up early in the morning," Mornjay remembers, "bake bread, and have the young men in the neighborhood sell it, for commission."
Then, sometime in the 1950s, while they lived on Camp Johnson Road, the Georges hatched a new idea. They would start a taxi service carrying customers around the greater Monrovia area. The plan pioneered the convenience that Yes Transport would later offer in the 1980s, and that MyCab does today.
Taking a Legal Power of Attorney (LPA) loan, where the bank deducted payments from George's government salary, they also took a leap of faith. They named their new company Puku.
Foremost, A Woman of God
How Joanna then found time for deep church work was its own singular miracle. "She loved God, and she loved people," Mornjay smiles. She loved the church and gave a significant portion of her life to it.
She worked religiously for the Providence Baptist Church and the Liberia Baptist Missionary and Educational Convention. At Providence, she continued her simple service of teaching Sunday School and singing in the choir. In due course, Joanna expanded her reach toward supporting the church's global impact. She held various offices in service to the Baptist Compact. When the Baptist World Alliance elected President Tolbert as its President, she joined his delegation to the USA to accept the position.
But her passion was the advancement of women and children in the church and society at large, and she dedicated her lay leadership to that effort. Elected Secretary of the Liberia Baptist Women's Missionary Union under Mrs. Elise Richardson, Joanna later became the Union's treasurer - a role she held with integrity for more than twenty years.
She traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, and Lagos, Nigeria, with the Liberia Baptist Women, to help organize the Baptist Women of Africa Convention in those cities. Elected the first President of both the Phoebe and Dorcas Circles, she promoted servant leadership, biblical study, and community service. The Dorcas Circle, for instance, sewed clothes for newborns at the Government's Maternity Center. She also worked with the Providence Girls' Auxiliary, was the second President of the Women's Department, and Vice President for the Sunday School Convention under the leadership of the late Deacon Henry D. Hoff.
In 1982, Joanna was one of the founding members of the Ecumenical Women's Organization of Liberia, an interfaith body aimed at advancing women's rights, peace, and social justice. And, along with other women of Providence, she pioneered the Prison and Street Ministries that are still highly active today.
Notably, as her work to empower women ensued, she found a longstanding and dedicated co-laborer in Mrs. Victoria A. Tolbert, First Lady of the Republic of Liberia. She served more than two years as Secretary of the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) under Mrs. Tolbert's presidency and as treasurer of the Liberia Baptist Women's Missionary Union during Tolbert's term as its head.
Joanna also joined forces with Mrs. Tolbert when she launched the Annual Calendar Tea. The high society event put the First Lady's soft power to good use, raising funds for the construction of hostels for wayward girls throughout the country. It convened eminent Liberian women, as well as the wives of diplomats and foreign residents.
An Uncivil War
Joanna would have been too young during her short time in 1930s Germany to have reconciled her experiences there with the mass expulsion of German trading partners from Liberia in the '40s. But then, that war never reached Liberia's shores. The Omega Tower in Paynesville, before it was demolished in 2011, was the most significant local evidence of that conflict. It proved pivotal to Allied Forces' strategic communications across the Atlantic, including the reported use of the Vai script for covert messaging.
Up until 1979, nothing could have prepared Joanna for the downward spiral into destruction and death that Liberia would face in her lifetime.
The privilege of having US based family to flee to be a small consolation. Tucked away as she was in Brooklyn, New York, where she lived with her eldest daughter, Yornweh Clemons, and her son-in-law, John, wartime tragedy still hit Joanna like a hand grenade to the chest.
Annie George Coleman, her beloved older sister and the mother of Judge Eva Mappy Morgan, was slaughtered with several members of her family in Sinkor's Fiamah neighborhood. It was a devastating blow for a family dedicated to service and community.
Compounding this tragedy was the death of Joanna's own husband. Cllr. Rev. Peter Amos George bid the world farewell in 1989.
Now widowed, Joanna nonetheless persevered in faith and work, becoming quite active in the activities of the Concord Baptist Church she attended with the Clemonses. And, though based in New York with her eldest daughter, she frequently visited each of her children across the United States.
Coming Home
The war ended in 2003, and Joanna began taking intermittent trips back to Monrovia. She was, of course, distressed by what she saw and has remained so. "She calls it 'dirty Monrovia, now," Mornjay says.
Recalling her mother's Monrovia -- and hers as well -- Mornjay describes the ecosystem that made the capital a safe and sophisticated place to raise a child.
"In those days," she recounts, citing her own experience, "the government schools were high quality. We had C.D.B. King Elementary School, Demonstration School, B.W. Payne Kindergarten School, St. Theresa's Convent, the College of West Africa, and B.W. Harris Episcopal School." The latter schools listed are Catholic, Methodist, and Episcopal schools, respectively. Other notable institutions at the time were Old Lady Crawford School in Bassa Community, Zion Academy, and Mother Blanche School. These and many other schools across the country were the envy of Africa, drawing students from across the continent seeking rigorous preparation for higher education here and abroad.
"In those days," Mornjay goes on, "we had buses taking us to and from school. We walked down Horton Street, boarded the buses, and were driven to Demonstration School."
Though mourning a time and place long gone, its remnants battle-scarred and strewn with sewage, Joanna kept coming home.
She was mostly following her mother. MD Coleman Dixon had returned to Liberia, intent on marking her centenary milestone, in 2006, in the place of her birth. This set the basis for a more permanent move for her daughter. Joanna remained in Monrovia with Mrs. Dixon until her death, before her 102nd birthday, in 2008. "She's been here ever since," Mornjay says. "Except for the COVID years. But she doesn't ever want to go back to the US."
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A Good Report
Asked how she feels about life, Joanna cannot help but respond in faith. "I feel fine," she says, simply. "I feel alright. In all thy ways remember me, and I will direct your path," she waxes biblical by default.
When prodded for the secret to passing her mother's age of 101, Mrs. George's memory strikes up again. "No!" she exclaims, wide-eyed. "I have an uncle who reached 107!"
They live long on the Carter side, Mornjay explains. Joanna's sister, Mrs. Claudia Augusta Nelson, turned 99 on September 24th, 2025. She lives in Boston.
Joanna finally shares the key to a long life. "God is my secret. God is my everything. Just what I ask him to do; he will do it. Leave everything with God. He will help you."
Mrs. J. Eva Coleman George has received not only help, but honor and just reward. In 2014, during the 167th anniversary celebration of Liberia's independence, then-President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman in Liberia and Africa to be elected to that office, awarded Mrs. George the national honor of Grand Band of the Order of the Star of Africa.
Ten years later, national favor smiled on her again. H.E. Joseph N. Boakai, Liberia's current President, made Joanna a Dame Grand Commander, on par with General Benjamin O. Davis, Sr.
Equally cherished in her heart are the honors bestowed on her by the Church. Rev. John B. Falconer of Providence Baptist Church appointed Joanna a Deaconess and later President of the Deaconesses. And, as a testament to her love and dedication to Providence and its people, she was elected their first Mother of the Year.
Best of all, her many children rise up and call her blessed. Sighs Mornjay, "I'm proud of her, and I love her so much."
Her siblings second that emotion, she shares. While her sister Annie Coleman is deceased, all of Joanna's children -- Edith Marjay Thomas, Alfred George, Yornweh Ophelia Clemons, twins Peter Amos George Jr. and Petrina Eva Chesson, Marie Mitchell Nayreau, Mai Doris Werner, Harriet Claudia Whistnant, Mornjay Olivia Pratt, Joan Sayakon George, Naweh Pearl Angelica George Scott, Motima Frank George, and Sayea Joanna Wrimene -- have made their presence felt in their mother's life. Joanna's daughters, in particular, take turns to visit her throughout each year. Harriet, for one, has returned home permanently to help Mornjay care for their mother. She is honoring an appointment this afternoon and thus unable to join the interview.
Twilight
The elegant, understated living room where the interview is taking place looks onto a gallery wall in the hallway to the left of the front entrance of the house. Fetching pictures of Joanna and Peter George grace the wall, in the black and white print of the '50s. There are color prints of Mrs. Mornjay Olivia and her husband, Reginald Pratt, and a smattering of family members memorializing notable events.
Striking artistic pieces also feature prominently in the living room and the hall. Bold oil abstracts by Lawson Sworh and village scenes in watercolors by the late Anthony Naplah. They stand as testaments to a love of Liberia in all its confusions and frailties, passed down from one generation to another.
Joanna and Josephine chuckle affectionately as we conclude the interview. Joanna is tired now, but she looks up from their quiet chatter and says of her nurse, "This is my adopted daughter." She repeats this several times, as the young woman beams with belonging. Josephine rises to let Joanna's feet down from the stool. It is time for her to retire again.
As she is wheeled away, Joanna marvels at her own intuition. "My nose was just itching. And I said 'Mornjay, somebody is coming! Then, when I looked, y'all came." She smiles, says a warm goodbye, and disappears with Josephine around the corner.
The house is minimally decorated for Christmas. A few deep red candles and floral embellishments grace the coffee table at the center of the living room. Green garlands line the railings of the balcony outside, speckled with Christmas lights turned off during the day.
There will be no tree this year. There are no young children to impress, and thus no gifts to tuck under it. Joanna's birthday lunch will be just as easy. Church folk will come around for prayer and refreshments, and that will be all. The priority is to keep Deaconess J. Eva Coleman George, Dame Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of Africa, as happy and comfortable as can be.
