Four generations gathered in Brooklyn on Saturday to celebrate their 93-year-old matriarch, a “tough cookie” who first got by in New York earning 50 cents for hanging curtains — and survived getting shot in the face in a 2001 robbery.
Annie Brown celebrated her birthday alongside sisters Vivian Brockington, 89, and Elizabeth Bethea, 86, and about 30 extended family members at the Crown Heights Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation.
“Every year God lets me see, I celebrate,” Brown, a former day care owner, told The Post.
Together, the crew enjoyed mac and cheese, rice and peas, chicken stew, beef patties, candied yams and collard greens as Stevie Wonder tunes pumped from the DJ booth.
Surrounded by gold and blue balloons, the sisters donned color-coordinated golden dresses.
The trio recently reunited at the facility, where Brockington and Bethea live. Brown was just released after staying there for the past three months while doing rehab following an injury and still visits weekly.
It was a special time for the sisters, who would convene each morning in Brockington’s room.
“For their morning ritual, their morning meeting, they would discuss if they were going to do activities, like music hour, church services or arts and crafts,” staffer Justina Silver told The Post.
They would get their hair and nails done at the center’s salon — always red nails for Brown — and then would have dinner together.
Brown is back in the Bushwick home she has owned since 1986, where she was shot in the head 23 years ago in a horrific armed robbery.
The then-70-year-old was followed home by an ex-con after cashing checks, according to her granddaughter, Lisa Brown. He pulled out a gun in the vestibule of Brown’s home and, though the quick-thinking grandmother grabbed a fishing rod to defend herself, he shot her in the head.
Her daughter, Louise Bradley, 74, called the ambulance.
“I was running in the yard, praying for her,” Bradley told The Post. “I was shocked. I just lost my father the year before.
“But she didn’t fall down, she was chasing the man that shot her with the fishing rod,” she said. “The bullet stayed in her head for over a year!”
Brown has since been honored by gun violence survivor organizations. “She’s a tough cookie,” her granddaughter said.
‘Keep pushing’
“Don’t give up. Keep pushing,” is Brown’s advice for longevity.
Her best friend, Jennie Sanders, 98, joined in Saturday’s festivities and added, “Think positive, be positive, don’t drink, don’t smoke, and eat good food.”
The two chat on the phone most nights, sometimes until midnight.
Brown, who has two daughters, five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, said she is thankful for every decade she has been in New York — even though she has watched it get “rougher.”
The sisters come from a family of seven children born in Bennetsville, South Carolina, and moved to New York during the Great Migration to escape Jim Crow laws and racial hostilities during the 1950s. Many of them settled down throughout Brooklyn.
The sisters have around 40 grandchildren between them, and many of the family members have served the city. Brown’s daughters worked for the city Departments of Transportation and Corrections. Other relatives were employed by the city Departments of Education and Citywide Administrative Services.
“Everyone has their own places, things happen over the years, people move in, people move out, but we’re always together,” Bethea said.
“Being around family and loved ones does prolong one’s life,” Brown’s great-grandniece Tatiana Brockington, 34, said of her relatives.
