Three women at the same nursing home on Monday (March 6) celebrated living more than 100 years with cake, songs and flowers while sharing their secrets of long life with friends, family and neighbors.
The three centenarians—Lucille Price, 100, Sophia Smith, 101, and Grace Marie Baker, 102—cut into a white cake while more than 50 people gathered at the Crown Heights Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in the borough of Brooklyn.
The centenarians gave differing recipes behind their long lives, but Price, a former housewife and hairdresser from Guyana, said no special diet had kept her going.
“I got no secret because I do whatever everybody else do. I eat whatever I have to eat and I eat any food, any food I eat,” said Price, who has 20 grandchildren and 35 great-grandchildren and has lived at the nursing home since 2005.
“It’s the soup, chicken soup,” said Smith, who was also born in Guyana and enjoys going to church and visits from her five grandchildren. She arrived at the nursing home when she was 100.
Baker, who was born in Brooklyn, said God was the reason for her long life. “He’s been taking care of me. I’ve had a lot of sick days but he wasn’t ready for me,” said Baker, whose hobbies include cooking, painting and visiting museums.
The party was not held to celebrate birthdays, but was to mark the centenarians’ long lives, nursing home officials said. The center specializes in short-term, post-acute rehabilitation and long-term residential care.
(REUTERS)
