Elva Nadine Blackwell

On August 18th, 1930 in Topeka, the best pie crust maker ever, was born at home because she and her people were not allowed in a hospital. Elva Nadine Sudduth was the second of three children born to Charles Sheldon Sudduth and Mildred M. (Jones). She grew up on Locust St. with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, just doors away and she could outsprint all the boys in the neighborhood. Nadine was a member of The Church of God and later joined St. John AME. She attended Washington Grade School and East Topeka Jr. High. When she was 12, she met her future husband, Albert Jefferson Blackwell, a tall Texas transplant, aged 14. They both attended Topeka High School. She participated in synchronized swimming and graduated in 1948.
At Washburn College, Nadine majored in French, Russian and Spanish languages, graduating in 1951. She was a member of the Upsilon chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha and still has her egg signed by all her big sisters. Nadine was also the last surviving original member of Les Club Commeres ("The Club Gossips"), a bridge club lasting from 1951 to 2014. She worked 24 years for the Social Security Office as a Claims Representative and then worked semi-retired for the State of Kansas.

Nadine and Albert didn't date seriously until college and on June 17, 1951, they married in her parent's garden. She and Albert used to "open" restaurants where people of color were not welcome. On a whim, they started with The Creamery. They walked in, sat down, ordered food, ate, paid and left peacefully amid the glares of other diners. She was also involved in Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education in 1954. The President of the NAACP at that time was her uncle, McKinley Burnett. Yet 10 years later, the schoolboard still had not adhered to the ruling and Nadine was front and center at the protest with a 3-year-old child in her arms.

She was a great mother to four children: Jancy, Garland, Pamela and Chandra, and had very loving family ties that stretched across the U.S. Those who predeceased her were her parents, Sheldon and Mildred, her brothers Charles and Elon, her husband Albert, daughter Jancy, son Garland, many cousins who were like brothers and sisters to her as well as nieces and nephews who left this earth too early, and her best friend Anne Petersen Nickerson. Those she left to treasure her memory are her daughters and their families: Chandra (Matt), their sons Auggy and Holland; Pamela (Bond), their children, son Adrian and daughter Arianna, adopted sisters Sharon, Valerie (Frank) and their children: Nicole, Cortney, Brittney and Farrah. She also leaves behind various and much beloved nieces and nephews who many times came to her for sound advice, of which she lovingly and freely gave them. She was 93 years old.