Alma Thomas is like the little engine that could.

She didn’t think she could go to college at an age when some of us have one eye on the rocking chair.

But she did.

She didn’t know whether she could graduate at an age when many of us have two eyes on the rocking chair.

But she did (with honors).

And she wondered whether she could work to an age when many of us are in that rocking chair.

But she did.

And she’s not done yet. The 90-year-old great-great-grandmother is still chugging along, volunteering with the Mayor’s Commission on Services to the Aging, attending weekly Bible study classes, and driving “to church and to market.”

“I don’t like being idle,” says Thomas.

Thomas hasn’t been idle since arriving here, from Maryland, as a teenage nanny. Besides volunteering with several organizations and tending to her family, Thomas has spent most of her life doing domestic work.

Among the places she worked was at Mother African Zoar United Methodist Church, 12th and Melon Sts., in North Philadelphia. “I visited the sick, shut-ins, drove people to the doctors, things like that,” said Thomas. “Things that needed to be done, but no one wanted to do them.”

Thomas, widowed six years ago, has one daughter, two grandchildren, two great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren. She did things so well at the church that its late pastor, the Rev. Joshua E. Licorish, suggested she go to college and study social work.

Thomas, however, didn’t think much of the idea.

“I didn’t know people my age went to college,” said Thomas. “When I was younger I thought about it [college] a lot, but I couldn’t afford to go.”

Finally after “much persuading” from the pastor and a few “refresher courses to brush up on everything,” Alma Thomas enrolled at Temple University. She was 58.

After five semesters on the dean’s list, Thomas received a diploma in social work. She was 63.

Finding a job, however, wasn’t easy. “I tried a couple of places, but at my age nobody was willing to hire me,” said Thomas. Needing employment to care for her sick mother, Thomas returned to domestic work.

An APPRISE volunteer

Eventually, Thomas was hired as a social worker at the Smith Shepard Senior Center, in West Philadelphia.  The job was supposed to last only one year. She retired 15 years later, a few months shy of her 80th birthday.

For the past 15 years, far from a rocking chair, Thomas has been a volunteer with the Mayor’s Commission on Services to the Aging’s APPRISE program, a free health insurance counseling program for the state’s elderly.

“She’s an incredible resource,” says program director Deborah Harmon-Pugh. “She’s lots of fun, a bundle of joy… a youthful spirit… an age-defying woman.”