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Centenarian Martha Hinson, counts church members among her family
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Martha Hinson has no biological children, but she probably has more family members than you do.
That's because her "adopted" family includes past and present members and ministers of Park Place AME Church in Homestead (she is a 76-year member) and "Homestead and Munhall neighbors and youth regardless of race, color or religion," according to her friends Catheleen White and Harriet Collie.
Mrs. Hinson, who celebrated her 100th birthday on Sunday with many family and friends at the church on East 10th Ave., was born on June 24, 1912, in Manning, S.C. In 1936, she moved with her twin sister, Mary Lumsden, and her eldest sister, Leander Felder, to Homestead, where she met and married William Kennie Hinson.
She immediately joined Park Place AME and became very active in the church. She was president for 13 years and also secretary and treasurer of the Mary A. Bumery Missionary Society. She has also served as: an executive board member on the conference level, chairwoman for research and status of black women, secretary and treasurer of the senior choir, president and parliamentarian of the Virginia Gladden Club, and member of the hospitality committee, senior usher board, flower guild, Sunday school, lay organization, Church Women United, World Federation of Methodist Women and the Steel Valley NAACP.
Mrs. Hinson, who lives at the Commons in Squirrel Hill, says her motto is: "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."
First Published June 26, 2012 12:00 am
