NursingLink

Want to Live to 107?

As soon as they finished singing “Happy Birthday,” Helen McCarthy plucked a yellow frosting flower off her cake and popped it into her mouth.

She turned 107 on Wednesday.

“I don’t have a secret,” she said about her longevity.

Her nephew John Guzofksi, who has taken care of her for the past 25 years, disagreed.

“Your secret is you never got married,” he said with a laugh.

McCarthy was born in 1901 and lived in Danvers. She went to Danvers High School and then attended Salem Normal School, which is now Salem State College. McCarthy worked as a secretary at the Registry of Motor Vehicles in Boston for 30 years.

She stopped driving when she was 95 – she thought she was getting too old to stay behind the wheel – and moved from her house to Ledgewood Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Center when she was 104.

Growing up, she took care of her sister and four brothers, all of whom she’s outlived.

“She was the oldest, too,” said Lillian Guzofski, John’s wife.

McCarthy lived a simple, happy life. She worked, spent a good many years taking care of her parents as they aged – although they didn’t make it to 107 – and did a lot of traveling with her sister-in-law, Peg.

They went around the world, John said. Germany, Ireland and Israel stood out among the countries she visited, but they weren’t necessarily her favorites.

“I liked them all,” she said. “I enjoyed every place I went to.”

She was also big into bus trips up to Maine and New Hampshire, but took advantage of places closer to home, as well.

“She loved going to the (Salem) Willows at night,” John said.

When she still lived at home in Danvers, her nephew used to take her up to the Stratham House Restaurant in New Hampshire every Friday. She was such a regular, the staff knew her favorite drink.

“Every day they knew we were coming, they’d have a Manhattan sitting on the table,” John said.

John started caring for her in her Berry Street home when she was 84.

“It wasn’t that she needed it then,” Lillian said. “He did it for the companionship.” He visited her every day, then began making her meals and turned into her caregiver. Now that she’s at Ledgewood, he visits her every day.

And McCarthy seems to be enjoying the center.

“She’s still very active in bingo,” Ledgewood leisure coordinator Jacki Adreani said. She also has a special bond with Ledgewood’s dog, named Harry Potter.

“I said to her yesterday,” Adreani said, “’You’re 107 and you’ve still got all your marbles.’”

© YellowBrix, Inc.

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