Local woman celebrates century of life

Julia DeFelice remembers simpler times and creamier milk

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Valley Stream resident Julia DeFelice hasn’t lost her memories of the old days after 100 years, including when bottles of milk used to be delivered with a layer of cream on top.

“Now it’s got nothing!” she said with a good-natured incredulity, sitting in her Sunset Road home. “It’s just water.”

DeFelice turned 100 on Sept. 15. She was born in Ozone Park, Queens to Italian immigrants. Her mother was strict, she said, and used to send boys away and wouldn’t allow her daughter to have a bicycle. Her father grew tomatoes and grapes, and made wine in his basement.

DeFelice recalled her lively family dynamic, with her parents frequently hosting company, including an uncle who would always sing. Her mother was born in England and spoke with the accent of that country, though she was fluent in Italian. DeFelice remembered hearing how her grandfather stowed her young mother in a “big bag” when they arrived in America because he didn’t have enough train fare for his family of five.

She remembered the trolley that used to run down a “little street” in Queens, later widened to become Rockaway Boulevard. Street vendors in Brooklyn would fry calzones in olive oil.

“They were like apple turnovers,” DeFelice said.

Her father would take her for trips to the country every Sunday, which meant traveling just west of Queens on Old Country Road. Her father would send her out to collect edible mushrooms, and when she and her brother would encounter apple trees, he was too afraid to climb for them so she would scamper up and throw them down.

DeFelice’s family wanted to send her back to Italy to find a husband. She had a cousin who said she knew a nice candidate there, but DeFelice could read Italian and couldn’t write it, so the cousin helped her draft letters to him. DeFelice would dictate, but her cousin “just wrote what she wanted.”

During the Great Depression, DeFelice went to work in the city’s garment industry, where she earned the nickname “Speedy Gonzales” for her hustle. “Of course I went to work,” she said. “They were the bad times.”

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