From soaring over Tuskegee airfields to desegregating South Florida’s waterways, Mrs. Maude Lewis Storr lived a century of unfiltered courage, literary elegance, and quiet defiance.
By Dr. Yvette Giles Stuart
Special to the Westside Gazette
(Editor’s Note: The following piece is adapted from the author’s personal reflections delivered during the home-going celebration honoring Mrs. Maude Lewis Storr.)
To the world, Mrs. Maude Lewis Storr was a centenarian pioneer, an educator, a published author, a philanthropist, a community activist, and an irreplaceable keeper of history. But to me, she was my beloved Godmother, my second mother, and one of my guiding lights—my “G-Mom.” With her passing on July 2, 2026, our community lost a living treasure, but her enduring legacy shines brighter than ever.
When her grandsons, Carey and Brent, brought her back home to Fort Lauderdale from Atlanta, my husband, retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Ricky O. Stuart, Sr., and I spent countless evenings visiting her with sliced mangoes and dairy-free ice cream. Whenever I asked what I could bring, she insisted: “Don’t bring me anything—just come see me.” In those quiet visits beside a woman holding a century of Black history in her mind, we were left endlessly, deeply, most impressed.
Soaring Over Tuskegee & Walking with Literary Giants
Growing up in Alachua, Florida, G-Mom’s thirst for knowledge took her to Tuskegee Institute during World War II, where student pilots often invited her to fly. Clad in a leather flight helmet strapped into an AT-6 trainer or P-51 Mustang, she playfully triggered the aircraft’s “howler” horn—a cheerful “toot-toot”—waving down at classmates below. Flying with the Tuskegee Airmen? She thought nothing of it. But Ricky and me? We were most impressed.
Decades later, during a conversation this past May, she casually mentioned her friendship with literary giant Zora Neale Hurston, author of the 1937 masterpiece Their Eyes Were Watching God. When I gasped in disbelief—”You actually KNEW her?!”—G-Mom simply shrugged: “The world was much smaller then, Yvette.” Still, how could I not be most impressed?
Rosenwald Classrooms & Desegregating Broward’s Waterways
G-Mom’s civic impact ran deep. In the late 1940s, G-Mom and my mother, the late Ruth Yvette Taylor Giles, carpooled to teach at Braithwaite Elementary and Junior High—one of only four Rosenwald schools in Broward County.
In the 1950s, her husband, Leon Storr, whom I called “G-Daddy,” my father, Alphonso “Al” Giles, and a brotherhood of Black boaters founded the Jolly Anglers Boating Club, which grew to 300 members. In an era of segregation, they petitioned Fort Lauderdale to build a dock for Black boaters at the newly designated “Colored Beach” in Dania, which, at the time, was accessible to Black residents only by ferry.
And because Black residents were barred from the all-white Fort Lauderdale Power Squadron’s navigation courses, the Jolly Anglers arranged for boating safety classes to be taught at the L.A. Lee / Northwest Branch of the YMCA—ensuring Black husbands and wives could safely navigate Florida’s waterways together.
G-Mom did not just support the club; she took the helm. She thought nothing of the day G-Daddy asked her to pilot their boat along the Intracoastal Waterway all the way from West Palm Beach back to Fort Lauderdale by herself. She knew quite well that one does not merely drive a boat; one pilots a boat. Yet again, we were most impressed.
Community Matriarch, Talent Agent & Loving Anchor
That same L.A. Lee YMCA was where generations of young Black girls learned ballet and tap. When I was seven years old, my dance instructor taught me a Middle Eastern solo. For rehearsals, we used a rope—but for live performances, I swapped the rope for my pet snake, Harry.
G-Mom loved it! She immediately stepped into the role of my very first talent agent, calling my mother to book “little Yvette Giles, the snake dancer” for community programs throughout Broward County as naturally as someone else might be booked to sing a solo.
G-Mom remained present for every milestone of my life, from my christening at three months old to my marriage three years ago. In the absence of my late parents, Ricky knelt before G-Mom, who sat comfortably in her recliner, and asked for her permission to marry me. She crossed her arms, eyes twinkling: “Now why should I give you my permission, young man?” He passed her test and became her beloved godson.
Even in her final months, her fierce independence never wavered. During one of our last visits, as she drifted off to sleep, I whispered I would leave so she could nap; she ordered: “Sit your butt back down!” “Yes, Ma’am,” I replied, and sat right back down.
On our very last night reading to her, as we drove away from her house, Ricky and I stopped our car in the street and looked inside through her living room’s picture window. She insisted on keeping the blinds open because she loved looking at the night light. Framed by that window, she was completely luminous. G-Mom was a woman who knew her own mind, lived entirely on her own terms, and left us forever most impressed.
A Final Tribute
To honor her memory, I offer the words of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “When Malindy Sings,” a favorite she recited so effortlessly with perfect country cadence in Black dialect and taught me to recite in my youth:
G’way an’ quit dat noise, Miss Lucy—
Put dat music book away;
What’s de use to keep on tryin’?
Ef you practise twell you’re gray,
You cain’t sta’t no notes a-flyin’
Lak de ones dat rants and rings
F’om de kitchen to de big woods
When Malindy sings…
Mrs. Maude Lewis Storr enriched Broward County, elevated Black history, and left an indelible mark on every life she touched. We love you, G-Mommy, and it is my deepest hope that, in spirit, this time, YOU were most impressed.
Dr. Yvette Giles Stuart is a Broward County historian, author, documentarian, and CEO of The Ancestral Legacy™—a genealogy, family history, and legacy publishing studio in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, co-founded with her husband, Ricky O. Stuart, Sr.
