Loreather Anderson Lytle, 105, church leader

WAS THAT really Michelle Obama on the phone?

When Patricia Hale picked up the phone a few years ago, a familiar voice asked for Loreather Lytle, Patricia's mother.

When her mother picked up the phone, a lively conversation ensued, interspersed with a few laughs.

"I often wondered if it was a recording, but my mother insisted it really was Michelle and I wasn't going to argue with her," Patricia said.

Her mother had been a regular contributor to the campaigns of President Obama over the years, nothing big, $20 here and there, so maybe it was the president's wife.

Whatever, Loreather was convinced that the Obamas knew her personally. After all, she got photos of the Obama family periodically, and she believed that they were her friends.

"I would say, 'They're not your friends,' and she would say, 'Yes they are, they sent me pictures!' So, after a while I had to agree that the Obamas knew her and were her friends," Patricia said.

Loreather Anderson Lytle, a family matriarch who had 117 direct descendants, a devoted churchwoman and choir singer who was attending 6 a.m. prayer services at her church at age 100, died Sept. 9. She was 105 and lived in Fairmount.

Loreather had another lifelong devotion - work.

Her daughter said her mother always had a job and, even at age 96, wanted to go to the City Hall Annex to check out city job listings.

"I had to talk her out of it," Patricia said. "But she always had a job, and as soon as one job ended she would be out looking for another."

Loreather had 10 children, but childbirth didn't hold her back any more than advanced age. "She would drop a baby and go back to work," her daughter said.

Over the years, Loreather was employed at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard where, Patricia believes, she worked on an assembly line. She might have worked at the Quartermaster Corps - her daughter doesn't know for sure - and her last job was for a city Recreation Department rec center.

Loreather was devoted to Union Baptist Church, at 19th and Fitzwater streets. She was baptized there as a child, and insisted on attending the 6 a.m. prayer service up to age 100.

She had to get up at 4 a.m. to make it to the service, taking a bus for many years. When she was not able to get to the church on her own, a relative would take her.

She loved music and sang with several groups with the Pastor's Aide Chorus, the Treble Clefs, the Lytle Inspirationals, the Senior Choir and a trio formed by the La-ra-thels.

She served on many ministries and other activities at Union Baptist. She was the financial secretary of the Late Torchbearer Organization, financial secretary of the trustee aides, teacher of the Ever Faithful Bible Class, member of the President's Council and the Sunday School Council, member of the Missionary Society and President of the Cheerful Helpers organization.

Loreather was 17 when she married Archie Frank Lytle. He was blinded by glaucoma at age 21, but was a popular baritone who sang gospel and classical music at churches and other venues in the region most of his life. He died in 1960.

After she turned 100, Loreather enjoyed attending the annual luncheons hosted by Mayor Nutter for people who had reached their centenarian year.

Loreather was born in Valdosta, Ga., to William Henry Anderson and Eula Emanuel Porter. The family came to Philadelphia in August 1917.

She broke her left leg in a fall in her apartment in the Regency House last August and never fully recovered. She was kept on painkillers to keep her as comfortable as possible.

Loreather had a loyal family. Fifty members of her family attended a party in her third-floor apartment a week before she died.

Packing that number of relatives in a modest apartment was a challenge. Some had to take turns going in and out, but there was plenty of food for all, although Loreather no longer had an appetite and wasn't able to hold a conversation.

"But she knew everybody and greeted each one with a little smile to show she recognized them," her daughter said.

Besides her daughter, she is survived by two other daughters, Loreather Price and Juanita Knighton Epps; a son, Ralph Lytle; and grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren and great-great-great-grandchildren.

Services: Were Sept. 17.