On Eve Of 107th Birthday, Another Cherished Visit With Marie Streeto

EAST HAVEN, CT — For the fifth year in a row, Patch spent treasured time with an old friend Monday.

We first met her in February 2021 while deep in the clutches of the pandemic. She was 102 going-on 103. The next winter, in March 2022, at this point far less a reporter than a friend, Patch paid another visit to the fourth floor of East Farm Village to hug, and catch up with her; it was the day after she turned 104. And the next year, 2023, visiting again in her cozy apartment with a lovely view, to wish her a happy, and milestone-setting 105th birthday. In March 2024, on the occasion of her 106th birthday, with her ruby-red rosary in her hands, she smiled and embraced a reporter.

"Oh! How are you? I remember you!"

Monday, just 10 days before her 107th birthday, the visit was a little shorter and though she was very alert and, as always, cheerful if not chipper, for the first time in five years, Marie Streeto did not recall a reporter.

"Oh! We met before? That's nice," as she grasped a hand and held it warmly.

'She embraces happiness.'

For the past three of the five years that Patch has visited, East Farm Village's Valerie Petrillo has helped facilitate those visits. And she knows Streeto well.

"Marie enjoys participating in our monthly Happy Hours and our Holiday Parties where she can eat, sing along to the music, and dance in her wheelchair with her fiends guiding her," Petrillo shared, noting the type of activities Streeto has been part of these past several years.

And, as Petrillo noted, Streeto is a very important member of the East Farm Village community. Indeed, her 107th birthday will be celebrated with a big party.

"On occasion, she visits her best friends in the building, and has lunch or coffee in Margaret "Tootsie" Franco's apartment," Petrillo described. "Periodically, I see Marie enjoying conversations with the other residents while sitting in the first-floor lobby."

Petrillo said Streeto, who has two sons, Mike, "who visits daily" and Joseph, "who makes frequent trips to Connecticut to visit with his mom," maintains "strong social bonds to her family and friends."

At East Farm Village, and throughout the community, "Marie is known to have a lively attitude, and she embraces happiness."

"The residents are inspired by Marie. They know her as the oldest resident in the community," Petrillo said, adding that folks frequently ask, "What her secret is for good health and longevity. "

"Be nice. Be a good person."

Streeto survived two pandemics, the Great Depression, the first, and second World Wars and many wars that followed. Raised a daily Mass-going devout Catholic in Fair Haven, she attended the then-St. Francis School and until she was 80, was still a church ladies' guild president.

Her philosophy on life, and how she's lived to 107, is simple: Embrace family, faith, and gratitude, and, as she said at 104: "Be nice. Be a good person."

"I like everyone. I take people as they are. I don't judge people. I try to be nice. It's just the way I am," she shared. "And you have to believe in something. Prayer is what I do. My mother was always very religious but not pushing it on anyone, she wasn't sickening about it, but you do have to believe in something. Pray, believe, have faith and your life is what you make it. That's it!"

Read more about Marie Streeto >>

East Haven Woman, Days Away From Age 103, Survives Two Pandemics

First Day Of Spring Birthday: East Haven's Marie Streeto Is 104

Marie Streeto's Advice On Living To Age 105: Take Each Day As It Comes

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