Death of a Matriarch

I saw an obituary for "Aunt Betty" in the paper today and thought the story was a good one. If we can't learn from someone who lived 107 years, who can we learn from? ;)

COLERAIN TWP. - Elizabeth "Betty" Berger was living proof of the fountain of youth - with a side of spaghetti sauce. "I don't look 105, do I?" she quipped with a gleam in her eye at her 105th birthday party, which The Enquirer covered in 2009. Spry and sharp, Mrs. Berger was known to most as "Aunt Betty." That's certainly who she was to her brother Anthony's son, Buddy LaRosa, the Cincinnati restaurateur whose pizzerias are the biggest Italian chain in the region. Her Sicilian spaghetti sauce tasted a lot like Buddy's, but she refused to give him the recipe. "I told him I wanted some of the royalties," she joked to a reporter. "He wouldn't pay me. So no deal." The Colerain Township resident died April 10 at Hospice of Cincinnati in Blue Ash. She was 107.

Mrs. Berger was born in a village near Messina, Sicily, on Feb. 4, 1904. She came to America with her mother and siblings in 1908, two years after her father, Sebastiano, started a new life selling fruits and vegetables in the West End. At the age of 5, she stood on a crate outside his West End grocery store and sold produce. And even though she wouldn't give Buddy her spaghetti sauce recipe, she did credit him with making her father's dream come true. Sebastiano LaRosa wanted to sell more than fruits and vegetables; he always said, "One day, my name is going to be all over town on bottles of pasta sauce and olive oil," she told The Enquirer in 2009. "Daddy's dream came to pass, thanks to Buddy."

Mrs. Berger simply eschewed old age. At the age of 97, she applied for and got a job at HoneyBaked Ham. In 2003, she moved to a nursing home and was the oldest resident. But she returned to her own apartment after a few months. She bluntly explained why to The Enquirer: "All nursing homes want are your money. And, the people there are too old." Mrs. Berger depended on the Council on Aging for Meals on Wheels and housekeeping help that allowed her to live on her own. At the same time, she was feisty enough to lobby state officials to install a traffic light on Colerain Avenue when she saw her neighbors struggling to cross the congested street. "She never gave up," said her longtime close friend. "Her theory was you don't quit. Whatever life brings to you, you just take it and run with it."

Good advice from someone who ran with what she had for over a century. Here's the full article.
http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20110418/NEWS0104/104190301/Elizabeth-Aunt-Betty-Berger-107

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