El Cajon centenarian celebrates right to vote

Dorothy Baber was alive when the 19th Amendment was ratified on Aug. 18, 2020, giving U.S. women the right to vote.

She doesn’t remember it because she was only 3 months old, but since age 21, she proudly has exercised her voting rights.

“I’ve worked the polls, and I even had a polling place in my house in Linda Vista. People voted in my living room,” recalled Baber, referring to the 1948 presidential election. “I drove ballots to the registrar’s office after the polls closed.”

That’s why, when her 2020 election ballot arrived in the mail at her El Cajon home on Monday, Baber immediately filled it out. On Tuesday, she donned a patriotic red, white and blue jersey and rode with her daughter, Vicki Owens, to the county Registrar of Voters Office in Kearny Mesa. Together they entered the building to personally turn in their ballots.

“She walks with a cane — but she walks,” laughed Owens.

After being housebound by the coronavirus, voting gave her a reason to get out of the house. “Everybody was socially distanced and wearing masks,” Owens reported.

When they arrived, a couple of ladies driving out of the parking lot waved and tooted their horn at Baber in a show of support. Poll workers, too, gave the centenarian a warm welcome.

Baber, registered as an Independent, prefers not to talk politics because discussions get too heated nowadays. She still studies the ballot and researches issues with a little reading assistance from Owens, who lives with her.

“She is very alert for her age. She watches a lot of news on TV,” explained Baber’s oldest daughter, Jean.

“I still have my faculties,” said the great-great-grandmother. She remembers living through the Great Depression and the attack on Pearl Harbor. She recalls washing clothing on a washboard in the kitchen sink, putting a tray under the icebox to catch dripping water, mixing yellow dye into margarine and sharing a tiny black and white TV with neighbors.