BY CHRISTINE VARNO
Staff Writer
CHRIS KELLY staff Anna Lapato celebrated her 102nd birthday on Friday. When Rose Capello, Red Bank, talks about her mother, her friends cannot believe that they know someone who has lived to be 102 years old.
“I know, it is unbelievable,” Capello said last week.
Her mother, Anna Lapato, a resident at the Willows Private Senior Home on Dudley Avenue in Long Branch, celebrated her 102nd birthday on Friday, a first for Willows.
“She is our oldest resident,” Elizabeth Rodriguez, the manager at Willows, said. “I have one 99-year-old here, but Anna has her beat.”
Lapato was born on Feb. 25, 1903, in Italy and came to the United States when she was just 4 years old, settling in Norwood, a town in northern New Jersey, where she lived for 80 years.
When she was 84 years old, Lapato moved to Shadow Lake Village in Red Bank before making her residence at Willows four years ago.
“She doesn’t look like she is 102 years old,” her daughter said proudly as she looked over at her mother sitting next to her and smiled. “She really looks great.”
Lapato grew up in a small rural town that was made up of mostly of farms where residents grew their own crops, according to Capello who said she was the second oldest of seven children, all of whom she has out-lived.
Lapato graduated eighth grade from the Norwood public schools and then became a full-time career woman.
Her first job was in a factory in Sparkhill, N.Y., where she made artificial flowers.
“She worked very hard when she was young,” Capello said.
“She would often tell me that in order to a save a nickel, she would walk the railroad tracks from her home to work. I have no idea how long it took, but it was far and she really did it.”
Lapato married Emilio Lapato in 1919 and had two daughters, Capello, 85, and Irene Gastaldello who was four years younger and who passed away several years ago.
After she got married, Lapato landed a job in New York City as a professional seamstress.
“It was during the Depression and she was making $35.50 a week,” Capello said. “During that time, that was a lot of money.
Capello said her family didn’t feel the pressures of the Depression very much.
“We did not have it bad,” she said. “We lived in the country, we had our own house. We never suffered.”
Lapato was married for 67 years when her husband passed away.
Today, Lapato has four generations of her family living. She has three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, with the youngest family member being 23 years old.
Lapato was a very active wife and mother, according to Capello, who said her mother was involved in the ambulance corps, municipal events, her church and the Republican Party.
“She is very smart and bright and was always a good neighbor,” she said. “She spoke Albanian fluently, and could read and write Italian and she never went to school for it.”
Willows hosted a birthday party for Lapato on Friday to celebrate her long and fruitful life.