The Journal News.com, NY
Dec 19 2004

At 100, man has bounty of fond memories
By BOB BAIRD
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: December 19, 2004)

With about 160 residents, birthdays come frequently at the Nyack
Manor Nursing Home in Valley Cottage.

While each is a celebration of longevity, some like one the other
afternoon for Sam Frattarelli, take on special meaning.

Frattarelli, joined by about two dozen relatives and friends and
almost 100 other residents, was celebrating his 100th birthday, which
actually comes tomorrow.

Making the event, coordinated by activities director Melly
Resurreccion, all the more special is the fact that Frattarelli was
surrounded by five other centenarians who live at Nyack Manor.

Like Frattarelli, who worked long enough to have several careers, the
other centenarians have had fulfilling lives, with careers, family
and enriching involvement in their communities.

Frattarelli, whose first name is actually Severino, was born near
Rome on Dec. 20, 1904, and came to the United States when he was 18.
He worked in construction and then for a railroad. By the time he
retired after a career with Con Edison, he and his wife, Sylvia, had
opened a diner in the Bronx and built it into a restaurant and
catering business.

Now married for 75 years, Frattarelli met Sylvia when he was a border
with her extended family. They married when she was just 15. Together
they had three children who have given them seven grandchildren, 18
great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren. Their
great-granddaughter, Bethea Davis, watched with her son, Joshua
Davis, 6, as her other son, Christopher Torres, just seven months
old, bounced on Frattarelli’s knee.

There were many family celebrations over the years at Sylvia’s, the
restaurant in the Bronx, and at the 220-acre property they owned in
upstate Livingston Manor. But in 2001, Sam moved to Nyack Manor and
Sylvia to the Pearl River home of their daughter, Margaret Ferrusi.

While a Livingston Manor resident, Frattarelli was active in local
politics, which also is a passion for Mary Grace Devlin. When I first
interviewed her in December 1999, she was 100 and still living on her
own in West Haverstraw. She said then that she believed a lack of
faith and respect was at the root of society’s problems and blamed
liberal politicians from Fiorello LaGuardia right up into the 1960s
for what she saw as New York City’s decline. Five years later,
remembering our earlier conversation, she announced, “I’m still very
political.” A bit after we spoke that first time, she lived for a
couple of years with her daughter, Jerry Reynolds of Haverstraw,
before moving to Nyack Manor.

Anthony Cavallo and Sarah Tancer both turned 100 earlier this year.
He retired a half-century ago as a driver for the New York City
Department of Sanitation. He and his wife of more than 70 years,
Rose, raised two sons, Ernie and Gerry. Together, they traveled to
Europe, Puerto Rico and Bermuda. Tancer was born and raised in
Brooklyn and lived there until a move to Florida about 30 years ago.
She lived there on her own until about two years ago, when she came
to Nyack Manor. She had two children, seven grandchildren, two
great-grandchildren and a great-great-granddaughter, Angelica
Pagnozzi of Nanuet. She was visiting along with her grandmother,
Berna Maloney of Nanuet, who drops in on Tancer two or three times a
week.

Mary Tukdarian, 103, lived in the Bronx and then New City. She raised
two sons with her husband, Haig, who had fought in World War I. He
also had been a member of the Armenian Legion of the French Foreign
Legion and at the time of his death in 1992, was believed to have
been the group’s last living member.

Alice Haagensen, 104, has spent much of her adult life studying and
writing the history of Palisades and Snedens Landing. As recently as
2002, Haagensen combined with mystery writer Dorothy Salisbury Davis
on “Historic Houses of the Palisades,” published by the Palisades
Historical Committee and the Palisades Free Library. A year earlier,
Haagensen was honored with the Margaret B. and John R. Zehner Award
for information she provided when Palisades was designated
Orangetown’s second historic district in 1967.

According to Rosita Manzano, director of nursing at Nyack Manor, part
of the Northwoods Rehabilitation and Extended Care Facilities,
longevity of residents is steadily going up and changing the nature
of nursing homes.

It’s brought more aggressive patient management, she says, with a
veteran staff responding more vigorously to any change in a
resident’s health.

Except for some hearing difficulty, Frattarelli is in good shape — a
testament to years of hard work in Livingston Manor, where he
renovated the house, barns and garage and built a greenhouse. He grew
his own vegetables and fished trout from his own pond.

Holding his great-great-grandson, Frattarelli looks like he could
live out what Margaret Ferrusi says has always been her father’s
motto: “Another 50 years.”

–Boundary_(ID_s+1B8Lc8I8GGSmC6Org3nA)–