So you think it’s a big deal to turn 50? Try telling that to a bunch of nonagenarians – people who are 90 years old and up. They’ll tell you that you’re just getting warmed up.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy declared May as Older Americans Month, as the National Council of Senior Citizens wanted to do something to honor and draw attention to the needs of people 65 and older.
In keeping with Older Americans Month, East Lyme celebrated its oldest residents in May with its third annual Celebrate 90 tea on Friday, May 16 at the Senior Center. The event was organized by the East Lyme Senior Center and the Commission on Aging Board.
With the help of volunteers and staff at the senior and assisted living centers in town, Cathy Wilson, center director, tracked down and asked the seniors to complete brief questionnaires.
Thirty-one town residents 90 and over responded. There are two 101 year-olds and one 100-year-old in town. Five are 97 to 99 years old, seven are 94 or 95, and eighteen are 90 to 92. Most are women. Some still live alone, others live with or near extended family; several live in the community’s senior housing and assisted living communities.
Seventeen of honorees ventured out on a wet afternoon to enjoy each others’ company and see friends. Tea sandwiches and pastries were provided by Bridebrook Health and Rehabilitation Center and Crescent Point in Niantic donated corsages to the ladies and a boutonnière to the lone male over 90.
“You are our living, breathing history,” Wilson said, in welcoming them.
As the years have gone by, she noted, the age of “older” Americans has moved upwards. Regardless of what number constitutes “senior citizen” anymore, she said, the center is committed to working together for strong, healthy and supportive communities.
Keeping with the election year theme, she had queried the seniors about politics and public policy.
Sixty-six percent of the respondents said they still vote in elections.
The overwhelming majority said the president they admired the most was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 4-term president who saw the U.S. through the Great Depression and into World War II. Reasons they listed included his quick, decisive action to implement back-to-work programs and to initiate Social Security and other social services, as well as lead the US through most of its involvement in World War II.
“People believed in him,” Wilson said, reciting the initial paragraph of Roosevelt’s first inaugural address, including the famous line “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Some of the East Lyme honorees had first-hand experience in politics and public policy.
At 98, Ruby Turner Morris, New London’s mayor in 1975-76, was the oldest person in the room. Early on in her career, Morris served as an economist in the Pacific theater during World War II.
Friends at Morris’s table prompted her into discussions of her days in town politics and her passion for sailing around New London. She once had to swim out after her boat to bring it back.
Arthur Massolo, the one man present over 90, had combined his journalistic background and interest in politics by working for New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller for 10 years. Republicans decided Rockefeller was too liberal for the party, he said, backing Barry Goldwater to run for President, instead.
Massolo, who wrote for the New York Post for 26 years and was a writer in the Army during World War II, recently published his memoirs about World War II, called “The Reluctant Patriot.” He also was appointed the first director of the Peace Corps for Central America in 1961.
Several of the seniors credited hard work and physical exercise for contributing to their longevity and health.
Emily Geida, 91, said she likes to keep busy and likes to read and garden. She has already set out 40 tomato plants, and grows peppers, string beans and parsley.
“Keep active and exercise,” recommended Alice Butanowicz, who will turn 92 on June 16. Her daughter-in-law, Judy Libera, who joined her at the tea, commended her for riding an exercise bike and treadmill until well in her eighties. Alice outlasted the equipment.
“I used to dance a lot, too,” she said.
Born Alice Filosa, she remembers being raised in a white house still standing near the East Lyme Post Office. She attended Flanders School, picked cranberries in the local cranberry bog, which her father, Angelo, took to the Mohegan market. She also enjoyed swimming in the Pattagansett Lake.
She worked at a woolen mill in the area and assembled motors for everything from washing machines and street lights to motors that went into space ships.
“I got all nervous making the motors for space ships,” she admitted.
Catherine Savitsky, in her early 90s, got active in the senior center when she and her husband, John, settled here fulltime about eight years ago. Before that, they lived in New York and summered in Niantic since 1939.
It was John, who has since passed away, who made sure they used the town’s senior citizen transportation, which cost only pocket change then and still does.
The senior center uses two vehicles, a bus and a van, to transport people around town, Wilson said. Both are on the road most days of the week.
“We provide door to door service – we will pick a person up at their home and drop them off to a medical appointment, hair dressing appointment, to the senior center, and, of course, return them home,” she said. “For transportation around town, the suggested donation is still 25 cents.”
Wilson thanked several volunteers who helped make the tea success, including Mary Jane Harracka and Karen Zmitruk, Crescent Point, Roseanne Girard from Twin Haven, Alice Spinelli, AHEPA, and Ron Bence, a town employee, who took commemorative photos of each honoree.
A listing of Senior Center activities and related information is available on the East Lyme Town Website at www.eltownhall.com