Ms. Mary Delores Adams

Mary “Delores” Watson Adams began her earthly journey on December 28, 1935, in Monroe County, Alabama to the late Willie Taft Watson, Sr. and Reola Stallworth. Delores was born via a mid-wife in a two-room house with no running water on a dirt road in rural Burnt Corn, Alabama. She was raised by her grandmother, Carrie Virginia Watson, affectionately known as “Mama Carrie”. Delores confessed her hope in Jesus Christ at the very early age of six years old at Bethany Baptist Church in Burnt Corn under the leadership of Rev. Lambert. Little Delores lived with “Mama Carrie” until she passed away when Delores was still a young girl. After the passing of her grandmother, she was raised by her brother, Edward Watson in Jackson County, Mississippi. Delores graduated from Pascagoula NEGRO High School (Pascagoula, MS) on May 25, 1953 during the days of segregation. In 1966, as a newly single mother, Delores relocated to Detroit, Michigan along with three of her six young children, painfully leaving the others under the watchful care of family until she got established. Without much more than determination, stamina, and dreams of a better life, her northern life began. In Detroit, Delores pursued an education and established a career in the medical field. She attended Wayne County Community College and Wayne State University where she received her American Medical Technologist State Board Certification in 1975. She was a hard worker! Delores once described an experience with a former professor who downgraded a paper she had written on the topic “Being a mother, father, and student all while working full time”. The professor didn’t find her paper realistic and thought it fabricated. Delores knew, however, how real her work/life experience was given that she lived it every single day. Let’s just say he wasn’t her favorite professor and leave it at that. Along with challenging clinical and academic work like mastering the understanding of the Krebs Cycle, Delores had a beautiful mind for remembering numbers that was evident everyday of her life. Those early Detroit days of struggle to maintain a life for herself and her three babies along with fortitude and a strong work ethic formed the solid foundation of “The Delores Adams Family”. Her family always depended on her love and nurturing. She firmly stood as the matriarch and pillar of 50 children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren. She will be sorely missed. Delores was a very sociable and active woman. She traveled across the U.S. as well as Canada and Europe. In 1987 she joined the Order of the Eastern Star Organization. She was an avid bowling enthusiast and participated in leagues into her 70’s. She often traveled out of state to attend bowling tournaments. She had lots of friends and was known for her kind heart. Note, however, that there are several first-hand accounts of her toughness usually involving a large knife and the threat of grave bodily injury . . . all likely well deserved. From her humble beginnings on a dirt road in Alabama, Delores experienced and bore witness to a world that saw dramatic changes during her lifetime. From World War II, the dawn of the nuclear age, Jim Crow laws and segregation, the civil rights movement, race riots, space travel and putting a man on the moon, the first African American Supreme Court justice, the invention of the mobile phone and laptop computers, the first African American elected President of the United States, the first female African American Vice President, to the first female African American Supreme Court Justice. Delores quietly went to sleep on Wed July 6, 2022 after a very brief, unexpected illness. She was preceded in death by loving partners Joe Lewis Jackson, Leonard Herman Adams and Lenwood Earl Williams; brothers Edward Watson, William Watson, Willie Taft Watson Jr., and Dazell Watson; sisters Vivian Stallworth and Clara Jean Watson; step-brother Calvin Stallworth; step-sisters Jimmie L. Dubose, Eliza Burton, and Nellie Black; granddaughter Baby Delores Adams; and grandson Lenwood Earl Watson. Delores leaves to celebrate her life and cherish her memory sons, Joe Lewis Jackson, James Lowell Watson, Jeremiah Jackson (Karen), and Terry Lopaka Adams (Sherrie); daughters, Alma Marisa Burris, Cynthia Denise Adams, and Gwendolyn Marie Williams; sisters, Roberta Wells, Lizzie Watson-Stephens, Claretta Pauline Colley, Rosie Poindexter, Nancy Preyear, and Arizona Watson Armstrong (Booker); Brothers Thomas Stallworth (Annie), Clifford Watson (Betty), and Robert Watson; 18 grandchildren, 21 great grandchildren, 4 great-great grandchildren, scores of nieces, nephews, cousins, special friends Ernestine Friesman, Mary Marderos, Judy Goind, and Liz Fulton as well as a host of other friends and colleagues.

Ms. Mary Delores Adams

December 28, 1935 - July 6, 2022