Parkland resident Thelma Fail celebrated her 102nd birthday on Sept. 24. Life was different when she was born in 1919.
When Fail was a child growing up in Florida, there was no air conditioning and people stayed cool with outings to the beach for the ocean breeze, using trees for shade, sitting on their porches, or cooling down with fans.
Much of Broward County was considered uninhabitable because of the Everglades. At that time, Wiles Road was a two-lane road with a canal, farms dotted the landscape, and residents rode horses up and down State Road 7 and Wiles Road.
Fail moved to what is now Parkland in 1978 and currently lives in the same house she lived in with her third husband, Willis Fail, who passed away in 2001.
The year Fail was born, life expectancy for women was only 56. The world was recovering from World War I, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, and Europe was under reconstruction. Refugees were returning home and being resettled, and the Spanish flu pandemic was wreaking havoc around the world. The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote, was passed by Congress in June of that year, and sheep were grazing on the White House lawn in Washington, DC.
One of the most tumultuous years in American history, that decade saw race riots, anarchist bombings, the Red Scare, and the stock market crash of 1929. The year 1919 saw the end of the Progressive Era, the beginning of anti-immigration laws, an attempt to “return to normalcy,” and the approach of the decadent Roaring ’20s.
Over her 102 years, Fail saw it all — another world war, another global outbreak (this time of COVID-19), social justice protests by Black Lives Matter, refugees (this time Afghan) being resettled, and instead of sheep on the White House lawn, there were extremists and insurrectionists.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Of course, technology has evolved during Fail’s lifetime — things such as television, computers and the internet, smartphones, microwaves, digital cameras, men and women in space, and social media.
Fail spent many years in Winter Haven, FL, where she worked at the local Publix for more than 25 years and retired from there.
“She’s a wonderful Christian woman,” says daughter-in-law Lynn Yoos, a firefighter/paramedic with Palm Beach County Fire Rescue. “She always had advice and knowledge of her life to share with you when you needed it. She was always there for her family.
“To this day, Thelma is so loving and sweet and still a fabulous cook,” Yoos says. “Thelma would cook Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners, and you knew you would have the most wonderful food. To this day she still bakes and makes her famous brownies.
“She created a real feeling of love and family,” Yoos remembers. “She always made her guests feel important and special.”
Carol Fail, Thelma’s daughter-in-law, lives next door to Thelma. She remembers her throwing dinners and parties for friends and family. “She was a great planner. Everyone always got along with one another,” she says.
“We love her to death,” says Carol Fail.
“We all want her to know we say, ‘Thanks, Mom, we love you.’”
