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Mostly Cloudy ‘We are so impressed by you’
Village celebrates two 100-year-old residents
When Chris O’Leary, the new director of Rockville Centre’s Department of Senior Services, welcomed a full Sandel Senior Center to the joint 100th birthday celebration of Viola Chisholm and Selma Stone, she could barely finish a sentence between all the cheers.
“We are so impressed by you,” O’Leary said to applause. “We want to follow in your footsteps. When we talk about ‘vital aging,’ we are talking about Viola and Selma.”
Her comments could not have been truer. Stone and Chisholm were born three days apart in 1913 — a year, O’Leary told the crowd, in which the average life expectancy for an American was only 47 years. And since then, the two have barely slowed down. Chisholm, born and raised in Rockville Centre, has danced since her childhood, and is due to perform in the Sandel Center’s upcoming October show. Stone — who was born in Brooklyn, but has lived in the village for much of her adult life — practices needlepoint, plays golf and reads on a Kindle.
Both the Village of Rockville Centre and the Town of Hempstead honored the two women, who received citations from the office of Councilman Anthony Santino and from Mayor Francis X. Murray; Murray’s father, former mayor Eugene Murray, has known Chisholm since childhood. But it was the birthday ladies themselves who lit up the room.
“Is it worth it?” Stone asked her friends and family, already knowing the answer. “Sure, there are the initial aches and pains, and you can’t go do anything you want to do. But it’s really a small price to pay for the joy of being alive.”
Chisholm agreed. “I have met many people, made many good friends, and enjoyed myself,” she said. “So I hope that you all live to be a hundred.”
