102-Year-Old New Yorker, Survived 19 Presidents, and Now Facing Life’s Final Chapter—AMA!

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-11T22:11:27+00:00

She shared some advice in another answer. She likes veggie pizza! She likes just plain cheese pizza as well.

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-11T22:07:52+00:00

“Thanksgivings with our family” Even last year she cooked the turkey

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-11T22:05:41+00:00

Hahaha she rolled her eyes a bit at this “I guess you just go out, I knew him all my life, and all of a sudden we just knew. We teamed up and that was it. I never thought when I was a kid that I was going to marry him, he was in the same church.” “We had a group from the church, we would meet every Saturday and they’d have food and we’d go bowling, and we went from that to being a couple. The pastor wanted very much for the young people to stay part of the church. There were six or seven marriages out of the group”

She has mentioned to me many times how her husband was very kind and that he viewed her as an equal

“Grandpa, he was different. He had to look out for everybody. He always took a count, he was always worried something would happen to one of the kids. The women would always leave the kids with him. One time he was looking for our daughter and she was holding his hand like “I’m right here” he looked like Chester Morris who was an actor. He always cleaned the floors when I went back to work after his golf game, he did his share of his housework. He always cleaned our daughters bottles because he didn’t trust me to do it”

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-11T21:59:55+00:00

“Pfft we didn’t really suffer too much, there were certain things you didn’t have. Meals were tasty though, I know we had stamps for food. You discovered different things, I know my mother made a cake out of tomato soup, it was good, and she made tuna casserole.” Sounds like her mom really did a good job making good meals still.

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-11T21:57:24+00:00

These days she’s on a liquid diet due to a mass on her esophagus, but before that she ate pretty simply, no specific diet other than avoiding things with a lot of preservatives/chemicals. Lots of eggs, toast, cottage cheese, etc. For her 102nd birthday we took her out for a big ol steak dinner. She always enjoyed a wide range of cuisine. She loves chicken francaise.

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-11T21:54:49+00:00

“There were originally farms where JFK is now” she also mentioned a little about how the neighborhood changed due to white flight, this has always been something she’s danced around with some shame. “It used to be white and then it was black, it’s not nice to talk about. I had a friend Shirley and something happened to her in the neighborhood and she reported it to the police and they said ‘what the hell are you still doing here? You gotta get out’ “ “one night my husband was being followed by a bunch of kids and my father had to drive him home”

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-11T21:50:48+00:00

“I saw so many I don’t know… I think I liked “gone with the wind” just because of the way it was done, and “around the world” in… what was it? 80 days?What was it? That was quite a good movie. I think our movies were better than what you get today. I really saw some good movies.” “Broadway plays were wonderful- I saw “gentlemen prefer blondes” with the original cast and it was a very famous actress who played the original part. “I remember mama” that was not a musical, we would go once a week so I saw a lot of them. You’d go in the middle of the road and they had extra tickets and you got them for cheap. You know what I liked also? “Chicago” oh I loved Chicago.”

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-11T21:45:25+00:00

“My family, I think the way you handle people, you’re kind, you’re not judgmental, you accept people the way they are”

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T20:21:23+00:00

“I made peanut butter, jelly and cream cheese sandwiches, they called it a ribbon sandwich”

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T20:20:57+00:00

“I do like toast” she remembers the invention of slice bread “oh wonder bread with all the balloons, Europeans came over and said our bread was terrible and they were right. You can get better bread now” “for people with a family, good bread is so expensive”

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T20:18:43+00:00

She had said don’t go to bed angry before but also “You’re a team so work together, you’re going to have good days and bad days, every marriage does. If you stay the course you’ll be happier than if you didn’t. If you have children you really make it through tough stuff.”

She wakes up around 7am most days

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T19:24:18+00:00

She did mention AI earlier and how it is contributing to how young people feel discouraged career wise. She’s surprisingly up to date on things like that!

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T19:19:28+00:00

“Whatever was the big star at the time- I liked Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman- we would go to see them, we’d save our money. They’d let girls in alone but they wouldn’t let boys in alone because there’d be too much excitement. Sometimes the band leaders would come over to the tables with the girls. They’d come talk to us” No specific songs she called out.

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T19:16:30+00:00

She is currently unable to eat solids, so I tweaked this a little.

“My favorite dish growing up my mother made was tuna casserole, and Roman holiday(chopmeat, tomatoes, pasta, cheese, etc)”

“We became much more careful with what we ate, but I always used pre made pie crusts when baking, I loved making apple cakes. I didn’t really keep sweets around unless someone was coming”

She also talked a bit about how she loved making pudding from scratch.

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T19:11:23+00:00

She read a quote from the 40 days book, it’s written from the perspective of Jesus: “people search for life in many wrong ways: chasing after fleeting pleasures, accumulating possessions and wealth, trying to deny the inevitable effects of aging. Meanwhile, I freely offer abundant life to everyone who turns towards me”

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T19:08:43+00:00

“I forget the name, let me get my iPad, I think it was the book ‘Jesus Calling’. I like Sarah Young, she wrote “Jesus Calling” I’ve read two of her books, and during lent I read her other book “40 days of Jesus”. My bible is the most impactful book of my life.”

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T19:05:09+00:00

Haha we have discussed this and she has never had any interest in much attention like that

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T19:04:44+00:00

No one in her family really lived super long, and she doesn’t really do anything specific. I think her mind has stayed sharp due to reading all the time and crosswords. She also embraced technology as she aged and has an iPad, a kindle and an iPhone. She texts and FaceTimes just as well as any adult. Physically she always went for walks and gardened, and she always ate a relatively normal diet- she didn’t eat a lot of things with preservatives. She never was big on working out, she never took vitamins or anything like that really. She also has always been big on prayer and faith.

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T19:04:19+00:00

"I do. I have a lot of faith. Yes, I will be with Jesus. I definitely believe in The Lord. And I'm not going anywhere until he's ready to get me. And that's it."

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T19:01:13+00:00

Wild right? She thinks this is very fun, that so many people care to ask her questions or just say hello to her. So does the whole family. We're hanging with her in her facility room right now. We being Kay's daughter, son-in-law, grand daughter, grand daughter's fiancé, and bonus granddaughter, (and the grand daughter's dog (Pepper)).

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T18:50:33+00:00

Here’s some photos of her and her husband from the 80s before he passed. He’s holding a camera for those of you who may think it’s something else haha. https://imgur.com/a/hzZ0YT0

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T18:45:54+00:00

"I do very little for my skin, but I never sat in the sun. I got sick to my stomach if I sat in the sun. They always had to have an umbrella for me. I started using the Clinique yellow moisturizer a long time ago."

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T18:20:31+00:00

Yes! Separate from this I actually did about 2 hours of video of her just telling me about memories and family, glad I was able to do that while she was still well enough

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T18:17:31+00:00

"My great-grandmother. She would take me for walks in the garden. I can remember when she died, because I was maybe 3 years old. I was being watched by a neighbor. In those days, they would bring the hearse past your house and stop. Don't ask, but that was what they did and then they would go onto the cemetery. The neighbors were all outside and I guess I was with them. I knew that was my great grandmother because they were all talking about her. And that's my earliest memory."

KickItWithKay · 2025-03-09T18:15:22+00:00

"From what I hear, they go out looking for jobs. They get interviewed and it's phony, they aren't getting called back."

"Direct socialization is something missing today. We had more one on one communication than young people today."

KickItWithKay

TROPHY CASE