NYC family celebrates 93rd birthday of ‘tough cookie’ matriarch — who survived being shot in the head in 2001: ‘Keep pushing’
She was shot in the head — but is still ruling her Brooklyn roost.
Four generations of the same family with deep roots in the borough of Kings gathered Saturday in tribute to “tough cookie” Annie Brown, who has survived and thrived for more than 20 years after a ruthless thug opened fire on her during a botched robbery.
The longtime Bushwick resident was a spry 70 when she 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 cruelly fired the weapon.
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, who first survived in New York earning 50 cents for hanging curtains, has since been honored by gun violence survivor organizations. “She’s a tough cookie,” her granddaughter said.
“Don’t give up. Keep pushing,” is Brown’s advice for longevity.
About 30 extended family members gathered at the Crown Heights Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation to celebrate Brown’s 93rd birthday, alongside her younger sisters, Vivian Brockington, 89, and Elizabeth Bethea, 86, who live in the facility.
“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.
Brown recently spent three months at the rehab with her sisters, while recovering from an injury, and still visits weekly as the trio lives out their golden years together.
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’s 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.
