Born in 1913: Crestview woman shares memories

The Velma K. Conyers Eastern Star Chapter #7 will honor their oldest member and namesake with a birthday celebration Sunday.

Formerly known as the Crestview Eastern Star Chapter #7, the name was changed in 2000 to honor Velma Conyers, who has held the organizations title of “Worthy Matron” for 46 years.

Conyers is blessed with good health, a sharp mind and wit to match as she turns 97. To what does she owe her longevity?

“Sometimes I wonder myself,” laughs Conyers. “I’m about the oldest thing still around here.”

Conyers maintains an active lifestyle both at home and in the local community. She does her own cooking and cleaning in her home and attends the local Council on Aging three days each week, where she enjoys a meal, fellowship and bingo with other senior citizens.

“I use to see old people sitting and rocking, with nothing to do and I promised the Lord if I ever got old like that, I’m not going to sit and I meant it,” Conyers said.

The Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church comes first in Velma’s life, followed by her Eastern Star Chapter, and she remains active in both.

She is passionate about fishing -- her favorite past time -- and as a testimony to her independent style, still cleans and cooks her own catch. 

“I’ve always loved to fish. We use to get in the road and walk to Martin’s Ponds,” said Conyers, referring to once public ponds west of Crestview. “It don’t get too cold to fish. We’d make a fire and warm our hands.”

Conyers was born Velma Jones in Bonifay Florida in 1913. Her grandparents, who moved to the area that would become known as Okaloosa County a few months after her birth, raised her.

Her grandfather worked in the turpentine industry and the family settled near a turpentine still in Deerland, a tiny rural community located at the present day intersection of Highway 90 and County Road 393, along the L&N railroad tracks.

Conyers vividly recalls from her childhood a hot July day in 1920 when the last public hanging took place in Crestview.

“I sat on a wagon at Deerland, watching people and counting cars going to Crestview for the hanging. I was little, but I wondered why people would want to see someone get hung.”

Velma’s grandparents later moved the family to a turpentine still in the Dorcas community and finally to one at Crestview in 1924.

She attended school in the Macedonia Baptist Church and the local Masonic Hall before Crestview’s first black school, “Rosenwald 57,” was built in 1926. 

“We had to bring water up from the spring that was behind the school,” Conyers recalls.

Velma married James Robert Lee Conyers and the couple made their home in Crestview, where they raised five children. Like most families who lived through the great depression, the couple worked at whatever jobs were available. One job that stands out in Velma Conyers memory is the years that she cooked in the Carver Hill School lunchroom.

“Those children ate food, not hamburgers, but real food. I cooked yeast rolls everyday,” said Conyers.

The local Masonic Lodge, the J.R.L. Conyers Lodge #364 in Crestview, is named in honor of Velma’s late husband for his many years of service.

The couple raised their children in the Mt. Zion A.M.E. where many of her family members still attend. Two of Velmas’s children, James Conyers and Mary Haynes, reside in Crestview, a son Freddie lives in Miami and a son and daughter, Charlie and Robbie, are both deceased. Velma has given up counting grandchildren these days and is content to say that she has a host of grandchildren and great-grandchildren all of whom she is very proud.

She has seen many changes in her nearly 97 years, many of which are particularly significant for a black woman who grew up in the south.

“I remember a time when there was a water fountain for blacks and one for whites, right here in the courthouse in Crestview,” Velma said. “We went to the Central Café on Main Street, but we didn’t go in the front door, we went in the back.”

Life has been good to Velma and she has been proud to call Crestview her home. She remembers many details about the community and families that have lived here and is often called on by local historians for her knowledge.

“I have enjoyed my life and I’ve been blessed,” said Velma said. “I’ve always had food and clothes, never a day without food, it might not have been anything but syrup and bread, but we had something to eat.”

Velma continues to enjoy life, especially her days at the Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church, where she is a deaconess. She sings in the choir, attends bible study and prayer and missionary meetings. One of her favorite activities is the old-time seven-shape singing convention.

“I can still sing it,” declares, Conyers with a smile.