Friday, March 21, 2025
Mildred Cohen, adorned with tiara and sash, entered the community room of the Barry and Florence Friedberg JCC in Oceanside for her 100th birthday celebration. The party, originally scheduled for January 20, just one day after her actual birthday, was postponed for a week due to a snowstorm that left ice and frigid temperatures in its wake, making traveling treacherous.
Cohen has been a member of the JCC for over 30 years and was honored at their annual meeting on June 25, where she was given an award for her vibrant participation and dedication. The people at the JCC feel like family to her, and besides playing canasta and Mah Jong, she has been instrumental in volunteer activities such as knitting blankets for children with cancer.
Cohen, her brother, and sister grew up on the Lower East Side where she says the schools were wonderful. She keeps an active social calendar but does miss having her siblings to reminisce with.
“We had less but we had much more, if you know what I’m saying,” she says of her childhood.
She learned secretarial skills in high school and went to work for one of the senior partners at Lehman Brothers. She then worked for the Chairman of the Board at Norton Lilly, but retired 50 years ago when her daughter, Bonnie Zebalese, had a baby; she wanted to spend more time with the family.
Cohen also has two sons, Warren and Mark, and said her children were so good, she took them shopping all the time. People would come up to her to ask how she got them to behave so well and she said they were just good, not giving herself the credit.
Warren and Mark live out of state now, but Bonnie is still close by and sees her mother weekly. Although Cohen lives completely independently, she has never learned how to drive, so Zebalese takes her mother to all doctors’ appointments, shopping, and does all the cooking for her, apportioning meals into single serving containers to keep in the refrigerator. Only recently has Zebalese hired a companion to stay with her mother Monday to Friday to prepare her breakfast, keep her company, and make sure she is safe in her apartment.
Zebalese always had a close relationship with her mother and says that Cohen was her confidante growing up. Cohen also had a close relationship with Zebalese’s children, taking them to Broadway shows, and occasionally taking the children overnight. Cohen now also has 6 great grandchildren.
Hope Firestone, a friend at the JCC, says Cohen didn’t stop exercising all during Covid. Unable to use the gym, she would walk 100 times around the parking lot across the street from her apartment. Cohen is proud of the fact that she doesn’t take any prescription medication
A social person, Cohen invited a small group of friends to her apartment during the Covid pandemic for card games. They all wore masks, and Cohen provided snacks and gave everyone their choice of a scarf she had knitted. Firestone was in that small group and said Cohen’s apartment is beautiful, with Cohen’s own depictions of Chagall’s “windows” hanging on the wall, done in needlepoint.
“She’s a very inclusive person,” Firestone said.
Cohen’s husband Murray passed away at the age of 79. When Murray passed away, Cohen sold their house and moved to the apartment in Lynbrook, where she still lives. Besides needing less space, she likes the fact that there is people close by.
“I was married to a very, very lovely person, wonderful father, wonderful husband,“ Cohen says of her husband.
Cohen says the most important thing in life is, “Not arguing. And the way you don’t argue is you give in some of the time. Not all of the time! But some of the time.”
The consensus at the JCC is that Cohen is a happy person. She’s sharp as a tack, and showed her sense of humor with a surprising confession.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” she said. “I have matching underwear for every outfit. If I wear a leopard outfit I wear leopard underwear.”
