Still playing at 107
5th June, 2008
Sarah DeFlorio turned 107 last month at the Caldwell Skilled Nursing Centre, where she can be found playing bingo every week, singing her favourite song “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.”
Known to Caldwell as “Aunt Sarah,” she has seen a lot in her time and still loves her favourite game, which she plays every Thursday in the dining hall.
“We’ve become a part of her extended family,” said Phil Sher, administrator at Caldwell Skilled Nursing Centre. “She’s a great example of the people who made our country what it is today. Sarah makes us proud to be in the profession of caring for the elderly.”
Sarah didn’t have much growing up, but she could always play a game of bingo and remembers the advice her father gave her.
“We didn’t have much money at the time, so I’d buy these cracked eggs at the market,” DeFlorio said. “My father always told me to try to help people and not to sit around. God put you here to do something, not just breath in the fresh air.”
Even through her old age, Sarah has kept herself going over the years.
“Sarah always stayed active,” said Karen D’Ambrosio, the wife of Sarah’s great nephew. “She was babysitting up to her 90s and cooking until she was 100. She’d make fabulous Italian pastries, pasta dishes and sour cream coffee cake.”
“I was watching the Titanic movie with her one night on television,” D’Ambrosio said. “She stayed up until 11 o’clock to watch the whole thing. But she couldn’t sleep all night because she remembered the day it happened and it was all over the newspapers in Boston.”
By Michael
