Rockwall Resident Celebrates 100th Birthday

(ROCKWALL, TX — March 19, 2019) Rockwall resident Dottie Lillard celebrated her 100th birthday St. Patrick’s Day style with a leprechaun-hat-shaped birthday cake and lots of green! Here are a few fun facts about Dottie from her friends and family:

Dottie was born on March 17, 1919, weighing only three and a half pounds and beat the odds by surviving when many preemie’s of that time and age did not.
She was born in the middle of 11 children, and is the last living of her siblings.
Her family had a farm and she worked hard in the cotton fields. Her mom sewed all their clothes and made her a beautiful jacket just like one she saw in a magazine without using a sewing pattern.
She remembers Rockwall when it was all dirt roads and very few cars.
She remembers that the building at 101 S. Fannin St. (where Pier One is located) was a “Ford House” (car dealership). But she never learned to drive herself.
After the war, her late husband, Buddy and her owned the Mecca Café on the downtown square of Rockwall for 25 years.
Her sister Lillian Jacobs (who passed in 2017) was a vice president of First State Bank of Rockwall for around 40 years.
She has been a member of First Baptist Church of Rockwall for 86 years!
She has been blessed in this life with loving friends and family.