Portland matriarch celebrates 106th birthday alongside family

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A Portland matriarch is celebrating her 106th birthday this Saturday, and she hasn’t asked for any tangible gifts for the major milestone — because all she really wants is to dominate her children and grandchildren in another game of dominoes.

Vada Micken was born in Atlanta, Texas on Sunday, Dec. 16, 1917. Growing up Black in the South, she said it wasn’t “always easy” working on the farm, but she got through it.

“Well, it was kind of rough, but that’s the only way we had to try to make it back then,” Micken told KOIN 6. “From what I can remember, that was the horse and buggy days.”

She was the eldest of 14 children, and she went on to have six children of her own. But after 23 grandchildren, she stopped counting.

It wasn’t until 1976 that Micken’s father encouraged the move to Oregon. A number of her children decided to join the cross-country journey as well.

“This is my ride or die right here,” Vicki Micken, one of Micken’s daughters who moved with her, said. “I’m just so blessed to still have my mom at this age.”

Mary Micken, another daughter of the matriarch’s, echoed the same point. She described her mother as a “sharp” woman with a mindframe that she aspires to have as she grows in age.

One-hundred-and-six years in, Micken named cooking as one of her biggest passions. She previously worked as a cook in a hospital, and to this day, she admits to cooking “something of everything” including greens, cornbread and pies.

Despite this, it appears that cooking isn’t her No. 1 talent. Her great-granddaughter Sharde’a Booth boasts that she’s a “great dominoes player” — and Micken was quick to mention that everyone’s too scared to play against her.

When asked for the key to living to see the age of 106, she responded, “Well, they say, ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’”

Then she added, “I have had some good days and bad ones, you know, and growing up I can say it wasn’t always good. But from the things that I’ve overcome, I just look back and say, Thank you, Lord.’”