Amanda Roberts Jones

Amanda Roberts Jones, the 110-year-old Bastrop daughter of a slave who lived long enough to vote for the country’s first African-American president, has died, her family confirmed this morning.

She celebrated her birthday on Tuesday, December 16. Baker said Jones went to sleep Thursday morning and didn’t wake up.

Her granddaughter, Brenda Baker, said that Jones had recently been hospitalized, but she was still preparing for a standing-room only birthday party on Sunday afternoon.

“She lived awful long,” Baker said. “It was a full life, and her faith in God helped her live a long life.”

The middle child of 13, Jones, who was African-American, was part of a family that has lived in Bastrop County for five generations. Her family remained a fixture in Cedar Creek and other parts of the county even when its members had to eat at segregated barbecue dives and walk through the back door while white customers walked through the front, said Amanda Jones’ 68-year-old daughter, Joyce Jones.

Amanda Jones’ life touched three centuries, during which she worked as a maid and a stay-at-home mother of 10 with deep religious faith as the cornerstone of her life, Baker said. Jones had voted actively for more than 70 years - even when it meant she had to pick cotton to save money to pay a poll tax.

Jones became a minor local celebrity after she mailed in her ballot for President-Elect Barack Obama in late October. Area elections officials said that she was likely the oldest registered active voter in Central Texas. When news of her vote spread, Jones was profiled on National Public Radio and ABC. More than 200 people signed an online petition to send her to Obama’s inauguration. Birthday cards from around the country began arriving at her home, Baker said.