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Doctor Q

Administrator
Staff member
Sep 19, 2002
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Los Angeles
Seems like there oughta be a web site specifically devoted to tracking all these "oldest man/woman/person in the world/country/state/city" people, reporting their stories ("I have 64 great great grandchildren", "I outlived 5 husbands", "I drink a pint of ginger ale every day") and letting us know who moves up a notch when one of them dies. Give 'em their time in the spotlight ahead of time, rather than in obits.
 

wdlove

macrumors P6
Original poster
Oct 20, 2002
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Originally posted by Doctor Q
Seems like there oughta be a web site specifically devoted to tracking all these "oldest man/woman/person in the world/country/state/city" people, reporting their stories ("I have 64 great great grandchildren", "I outlived 5 husbands", "I drink a pint of ginger ale every day") and letting us know who moves up a notch when one of them dies. Give 'em their time in the spotlight ahead of time, rather than in obits.

I'm with you on that Doctor Q. It would be nice if there was a website devoted to our 100 plus citizens. We can always learn from our elders.
 

Norma

macrumors newbie
Jan 23, 2004
3
0
Hey! She's my grandmother!

Hi,
I know this thread is pretty old but I found and wanted to post. Aurelia Marotta was my grandmother, and there is a website devoted to tracking what they call "super-centenarians"; that is, persons who are verified to be 110 years or older. It's http://www.grg.org, and they do have a table, as someone mentioned, with the world's oldest people listed in order, and it is updated every time someone dies or a new super-centenarian is discovered. It's run by the Gerontology Research Group, and they were in contact w/my family about my grandmother's life and health/habits, etc. for the last several years. In short, she was never sick a day in her life...drank red wine every day, had a gin and tonic on Sundays..did not drink water (!) - cooked most everything from scratch and ate all kinds of food - walked a lot - and did not know the secret to her long life and good health. Interestingly, both her parents lived into their 90's, but all her brothers and sisters (a family of 10 kids) died in their 50's, 60's and 70's. Of her two sons, my dad is the younger - he's 78 - and his older brother died in 1995 at age 72 - so go figure! Anyway, it was nice of you to mention her; I was doing a web search on her name to see which papers had run her obit and ran across your discussion group.
I am a Boston native & current resident of Plymouth, MA.
NW
 

wdlove

macrumors P6
Original poster
Oct 20, 2002
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It is awesome to actually hear from a realtive of Aurelia Marotta. I hope that you will post again. Were you able to learn some unusual history from her?
 

Doctor Q

Administrator
Staff member
Sep 19, 2002
39,775
7,497
Los Angeles
How nice of you to post, Norma! It's amazing to hear centenarians tell their stories and learn how an event we know only from old news stories was a real part of their life. You've certainly brought the story of Aurelia Marotta to life for us.

The original story in the first post above is no long available. Can you tell us more about your grandmother's life?

And we hope you inherited those great genes from your grandmother!
 

Norma

macrumors newbie
Jan 23, 2004
3
0
Wow, it was nice to hear back from both of you. Briefly, my grandmother was born Aurelia Emma Ratto on June 27, 1890, at her parents' house in East Boston, MA. Her parents were natives of Genoa, Italy (Anna Lavezzo and Gianbatiste Ratto) who arrived in America some time in the late 1800's...Gianbatiste was the captain of a ship of some sort (not a passenger ship, probably like a merchant marine) and they had orignally intended to emigrate to Argentina, somehow ended up in America by way of San Francisco, I believe...not sure how they ended up out East here. Her father became a fruit vendor in Boston. Anyhow...she was a woman ahead of her time...went to college for a year, did not get married until she was 32 years old. She had two sons, my uncle Jack, who died suddenly in 1995 (*when she was 108 years old, very devastating) and my father, who is about to be 78 yrs. old. She did not profess to have any secrets to living long - just good genes and good luck, I guess. Two of her brothers died in the 1929 influenza epidemic, and as I mentioned, the rest of her siblings were all dead before I was born. She was literally, never sick in all the years that I knew her (she was 80 when I was born and made her first and only trip to Europe that year) - never so much as a sniffle. After my uncle's death, my father took to staying with her most of the time (likea good Italian boy), but, when her eyesight really began to fail and he became afraid of her having a fall at home, she moved to a nursing home at age 109! She was still pretty alert and aware during the last years of her life - she would sometimes call my father by his brother's or father's name, etc., but remained remarkably coherent, considering her age. The things she saw and lived through are mind-boggling...to be born in an age of gas lights and horse and carriages and to die in the age of technology we live in now - her husband fought in WWI and both sons in WWII...too much to even comprehend in over 100 years of history and the greatest and fastest changes to the world since it began, probably. I thank you so much for your interest and for the chance to tell some of her story, however abbreviated. Please feel free to ask any questions and check out the grg.org website if you are interested in learning more about what they do.
Norma
 

wdlove

macrumors P6
Original poster
Oct 20, 2002
16,568
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Hi Norma, thank you for your post. A lot of interesting information. Have you thought about writing a book or an article about your grandmother?

I have pasted http://www.grg.org into the web browser in Internet Explorer and Safari and I get the message, no server found?
 

Doctor Q

Administrator
Staff member
Sep 19, 2002
39,775
7,497
Los Angeles
I tried grg.org on two evenings, and I couldn't get to the site either. Perhaps their server only runs certain hours or days?

I should have offered my condolences earlier, Norma, on the death of your grandmother. You might have been expecting her to live forever, and I'm sure it was sad to lose her.

She didn't get married until she was 32? In the 1920s, that was pretty unusual. I'm sure by then Anna and Gianbatiste must have given up all hope that she would ever be married! You said "her husband fought in WWI", so I take it she had only one husband. For how long was she a widow?

One of the great-grandmothers in my family tree was born in 1891 and died in 1987, having outlived her only husband by 30 years.
 

Norma

macrumors newbie
Jan 23, 2004
3
0
Hi,
Gerontology research group must be having a problem w/their site...I can't link to it from my "favorites" or from doing a search on my grandmother's name, which is where I originally found the list, etc. Maybe just technical difficulties.
Thanks for your condolences. Yes, my grandmother married my grandfather, Michelangelo Marotta, in 1922. I believe he was also born in 1890 and they were the same age. My uncle was born in 1923 and my dad in 1926. Grandpa Mike did serve in WWI; we've got a big envelope full of photos he sent back from France. He died in 1967, so she was a widow for about 36 years.
I guess when someone gets to be that old, you do sort of expect they're just going to hang around forever! But I know her last years were not very happy ones - after losing her son and having to leave her home, not being able to do for herself anymore (this is a woman who was still taking the blue line into City Hall by herself at age 100, cooking lasagna for the family at 105, etc.) - she was not a cuddly, rocking chair grandma but she was very loving in her own way. I remember looking at the Sunday paper with her (she used to come to our house every Sunday) when I was about 10, so she would have been 90 - and she remarked that the things in the Jordan Marsh ad were "old ladies' clothes" - she still didn't think of herself as an old lady - and I guess she kind of wasn't, considering she still had 23 years to go! : )
I feel sad that she never saw my kids, her great grandchildren - they're both just babies, and I didn't want to take them into a nursing home (kind of germ-phobic about those places), but I did name my younger daughter Emma, which was Aurelia's middle name. I think that pleases my dad.
Anyhow, I will continue to check on the grg website and maybe e-mail the researcher who kept in contact with us; see if they have changed the URL or something.
I will keep in touch.
Thanks again!
Norma
 
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