By Nicole Falco
Had they even had access to a phone to call family and friends, a three-minute long-distance call might have cost as much as $11. The average annual income was less than $400.
On Aug. 6, Holly will celebrate her 100th birthday. Quick-witted and mobile, Holly will celebrate at an annual family picnic on Aug. 2 and at a catered party on Aug. 16. The birthday girl's few wishes include "new feet," "new eyes" and a winning Lotto ticket -- so she can give the money to her family.
"Oh, I did a lot of living in those 100 years," Holly said.
In 1903 the average life expectancy was a mere 47 years. Travel wasn't the norm. If folks did travel, it was either on foot or by train, trolley or horse-drawn carriage. There were only about 8,000 cars rolling along the 144 miles of paved roads in the 45 United States. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska had yet to join the Union.
Holly has lived through five major American wars. Her first husband, Kenneth Auld, served in the Navy in World War I, and her second, James Holly, was in the Army during World War II.
There have been 17 presidents since her birth. She has made it her business to vote regularly and, even as she neared her 100th birthday, her daughter took her to vote in the school election and budget vote in June.
Holly has survived not only both of her husbands but three of her five children, five of her six siblings and one grandchild. She has enjoyed being grandmother to her eight living grandchildren, great-grandmother to 10 and great-great-grandmother to four. Her youngest great-great-grandchild was born last week.
Holly grew up poor, but her family was close. She lived with her extended family in various Brooklyn apartments. There was little time for play. Among her chores, Holly would dig for unused pieces of coal in a field of cinder and ash in "Pig Town," and she helped raise her younger siblings while her mother worked. "I was like a little old lady," Holly said of her youth.
Her family shared a love of music. Though her poor hearing has since affected her abilities, Holly was known for her natural harmonizing ability. She and her sister, Anna, were even sought out by an agent, but Anna was too nervous for the audition.
When family members weren't busy entertaining themselves, they sought entertainment elsewhere. According to Holly, one peculiar form of entertainment was waiting for the sanitation department to pick up a dead horse. In the 1900s, when a horse died, it would be left in the street for days. Oats and hay, eaten by the horse before its death, would ferment and swell its belly. A day prior to carting the horse away, a sanitation worker would pierce the horse's abdomen with a spear, sending a geyser of hay and oats in the air.
"We'd scream and laugh and scream and laugh and clap hands and run up and down the street," Holly recalled.
After graduating from eighth grade, Holly was expected to work. She worked at a handkerchief factory, a milk company and a government factory. She later worked for the telephone company for almost 20 years, until she got pregnant for the second time. She also helped her mother and grandmother clean houses.
Holly and her mother would travel to Queens to clean Dora and William Gibson's house. Dora Gibson was Holly's second cousin. Valley Streamers might know William Gibson as the contractor who developed houses in Valley Stream's "Gibson" section. Holly hoped the Gibsons might offer her family a house in the "country," but they never did. Holly didn't become a Valley Stream resident until she moved in with her daughter, also named Ethel, and her husband in 1986.
Holly spent all of her adult life in Brooklyn and Manhattan, except for a few years in California after she married her first husband. She and Kenneth Auld had one son, James, born in 1925. After years of illness, Auld died in 1941. Ethel married James Holly in 1943 after a brief courtship. Her son also married that year. Within a few years, Holly gave birth to twin boys, John and Michael, then she had Margaret and Ethel. John died at birth. Michael was murdered in 1985 by a member of the Westies, a notorious Irish gang.
Ethel had noticed James Holly, who worked as a longshoreman, around the neighborhood, but they had never met. After Auld's death, a friend introduced her to Holly. "He couldn't have cared less," Holly said of their first meeting. "Oh, was he ever a man. I had to run after him. I worked on it. I certainly did get him, but it wasn't easy."
James Holly died in 1966. Holly's first son also died that year after battling cancer.
After her husband's death, Holly decided to retire -- she had returned to work once her children were grown -- and enjoy her grandchildren. She'd take public transportation to visit, baby-sit or take her grandchildren out. She vacationed with her children and their families. It wasn't until the early 1970s that Holly spent a night in a hotel, and she took her first plane ride a few years later -- shaking from head to toe.
Holly continues to surprise her family. Just last month, the 99-year-old was spotted zipping around King Kullen, driving an electric shopping cart alongside Ellen Primavera, her 85-year-old "baby" sister.
