Name/Title
Excel Healthcare - Velma Clay - Brother in the ServiceDescription
Velma was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 1926 into a family of seven girls and four boys. She had a very special relationship with her twin sister. Her happiest childhood memories centered around the holidays, when everyone in the family gathered together.
After graduating from high school, Velma attended cooking school. It was there that she found her passion and her career. When she moved to California in 1947, she found a job cooking in the cafeteria of Capwell, Sullivan and Furth, the well-known San Francisco department store. There, her specialty became peach cobbler. She also enjoyed singing as a soprano in the choir of the Second Union Missionary Baptist Church.
Velma was married to her second husband, Matthew, for fifty years and is the proud mother of two children.
Though her baking days are over, she's discovered weekly bingo games at Excell, where she plays three cards at a time! Looking back at her life she says, "I tried, even if I didn’t always succeed.”
