512 years, 1 big birthday bash

The county and SunTrust Bank host an annual party for five centenarians.

By BETH N. GRAY, Times Correspondence
Published January 10, 2008

Winonah Greene smiles while listening to a speaker at Hernando County's fifth annual Centenarian Birthday Party in Brooksville on Tuesday.
	[Maurice Rivenbark | Times]

BROOKSVILLE - History came alive and personal when Hernando County and SunTrust Bank hosted the fifth annual Centenarian Birthday Party on Tuesday for five county residents who will mark 100 years or more of life experiences in 2008.

Individual birthday cakes shared the community room at the financial institution with the honored celebrants. Wearing their Sunday-style suits, their white hair styled, the guests of honor were surrounded by about 50 relatives, friends and government officials.

County Health and Human Services director Jean Rags offered brief biographies, spiced by the centenarians' significant memories.

Marie O'Brien remembers troops marching through her native Philadelphia in 1917, en route to World War I postings. Then 15 years old, she waved and handed out cigarettes and snacks. She's now 106, thought to be the oldest county resident.

Winonah Greene, born in 1906, graduated from the Petersburg, Va., high school with honors and earned a four-year scholarship to Virginia State College, no mean feat for a young woman of that era. She will celebrate her 102nd birthday Sunday.

Joseph Mennella, looking forward to marking 102 years on Sept. 2, credits his longevity to an illness as a child that required hospitalization. He was cared for by an Italian immigrant nurse named Mother Cabrini. The nun was since canonized and is known today as St. Cabrini.

Growing up in Perth Amboy, N.J., Dorothy Berry, turning 102 this year, lived near the waterfront. Playing with girlfriends one day, they noticed a commotion nearby. They scurried over. A man seemed to be preaching, she recalls. The speech concluded, the man came over to the children and handed each a newly minted buffalo nickel. Recounting the experience back home, Berry said her mother told her, "Well, that was Teddy Roosevelt speaking."

Theodore A. Dangelmaier, who qualifies for 100 candles on his birthday cake Jan. 25, is a World War II veteran sergeant who took his technical military training into newspaper production jobs at the Washington Post and, later, the Gannett Co. His fondest memories are of taking leave from his newspaper jobs during summers so he and his wife could operate a resort hotel in Canada.

The five honorees tally 512 years of what they say was happy and successful living, with few regrets. Four remain spry.

The 106-year-old O'Brien, resident of a Brooksville nursing home now, was represented at the function by her niece, Marie Dawson, daughter of O'Brien's older sister. She'd come from Pennsylvania for the event, as she has yearly since her aunt turned 100.

Shared with the gathering was advice to young people from the centenarians:

"Go to school and watch your pennies. Get a good job and be honest with yourself," said O'Brien.

"Find a dream, stay in school, work hard toward success. You can do it if you try," said Greene.

"Get an education," said Mennella.

"Enjoy a clean life while young. Be kind to others," said Dangelmaier.

Enjoy your family, especially grandparents who can give you a sense of history, said Berry.

The celebrants, who have witnessed 18 presidents, the Great Depression, two World Wars, Prohibition and advent of the Internet, received proclamations, certificates and letters of congratulations from U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite of Brooksville, state Rep. Robert Schenk of Hernando County and state Sen. Mike Fasano, and the city of Brooksville.

Centenarian Class of 2008

Marie O'Brien, 106 years old, Jan. 3

Dorothy Berry, 102 years old, Sept. 29

Winonah Greene, 102 years old, Sunday

Joseph Mennella, 102 years old, Sept. 2

Theodore A. Dangelmaier, 100 years old, Jan. 25

[Last modified January 9, 2008, 20:41:25]