SAN ANTONIO, Texas – With the energy of someone decades younger, Alice “Ma” Harper maneuvered around the small kitchen of her San Antonio restaurant one recent morning, making sure everything was just right for the lunchtime crowd.
“We got rice ready, beans ready, gumbo ready. I’m going to make the sandwich,” she said, ticking off a mental checklist.
The preparation work had staff members scrambling around.
But even at the age of 95, the owner of Ma Harper’s Creole Cuisine said she has no plans to slow down.
“You don’t die from working. You die from not working,” Harper said, emphatically. “I’m not ready to stop because there’s a lot of help needed out there.”
With her business, located on North New Braunfels Avenue just down the street from the gates of Fort Sam Houston, Harper has been helping the community for 33 years.
That includes keeping her customers happy, as well as feeding the hungry all across the city.
“I asked God, ‘What could I do to give back what you gave to me?,’” she said. “God gave me this vision, and he has made provision.”
Life, though, hasn’t always been easy for Harper.
She was born Alice Olivia Martinez in New Orleans, the second of 16 children.
Harper said learning to cook was a necessity back then, but it now serves her well.
“I cook as if I was going to eat it. You’re not going to eat what I won’t eat,” she said, explaining her high standards in the kitchen.
Proof of her successful formula, trophies, awards, and honors, line glass cases, shelves, and the walls of her restaurant.
Still, Harper said she is not in business for the glory.
In addition to reaching out to the hungry, she also takes in people who need a second chance in life by giving them jobs.
Harper earned her GED as an adult, then found work as a civilian aircraft mechanic at Kelly Air Force Base.
“I worked on F15s, F16s, F100s,108s,107s,” Harper recalled.
After nearly 22 years, she retired from that position, giving up fixing planes for fixing plates of food.
Her work in the community throughout the years has not gone unnoticed.
In honor of her milestone birthday and her 33 years in business, Precinct 4 Constable Kathryn “Kat” Brown and Precinct 4 Commissioner Tommy Calvert recently issued proclamations in Harper’s name.