Santa Fe woman celebrates 102 years with friends, family
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11/8/2008 - 11/9/08
Few of us will ever know what it's like to be older than 100. One Santa Fe resident is having a hard time wrapping her mind around the fact that she will be 102 soon."Are you sure I'm going to be 102?" asked Casa Real resident Harriet Merlino.
Merlino's loved ones had plans to celebrate her 102nd birthday on Nov. 8, 102 years after she was born in Buffalo, N.Y., but she wasn't quite so interested.
"I don't have any more birthdays," she joked.
When she was a little girl growing up in Buffalo, she liked to keep busy, she said.
"I was very active," Harriet Merlino recalled. "I lived around the corner from the playground and that was my second home. I played basketball, baseball — everything."
Later, she loved to dance, especially the Charleston.
"Oh the Charleston," she said with a laugh. "Ay, ay, ay."
"Today I can't walk," she said, gesturing to her wheelchair.
"You wore your legs out," her son John Merlino replied with a laugh.
She married Sam Merlino, but didn't quite remember when. She did remember that her dress, which was hand-stitched by her in-laws, was exquisite. She felt beautiful in the veil she wore, which was an "old relic" in the Merlino family.
She spent the evening dancing with everyone, especially her father-in-law.
"We had a ball dancing, me and the old man," she said.
She, her husband and later their three children joined in the Merlino family tradition of making cheese.
"They were the biggest cheese makers in Buffalo," Harriet Merlino said. The family specialized in making ricotta cheese. "They made all of it in their home."
John Merlino remembers when they used to go to the family farm where all the cheese making took place. One summer in particular, he witnessed his mother's work ethic.
"They had real high grass; probably as high as this room," John Merlino said. "We didn't have a grass cutter, so she cut the grass with a pair of scissors. She cut the whole lawn."
In addition to dancing, she always enjoyed a good game of bowling. She will never forget a near-perfect game that is now notorious in the Merlino family.
"Remember when you bowled that perfect game," John Merlino asked his mother.
"I was three pins short of 300," she retorted, bitterly. "I swore at that ball. I could have picked that ball up and thrown it."
Now she fills her day with visits from her son and grandson Nick, who works at Casa Real, bingo games and visits to the casino.
"She is so active in our activities program," said activities director Ramona McLaren.
This past year, she was Casa Real's Fiesta Queen.
Harriet Merlino moved to Santa Fe in the late '50s to be with her son John.
Her kids, and later her 12 grandchildren, were a highlight in her life.
"I had my hands full, but I loved every minute of it," she said. "I had a ball with my three kids."
She credits her long life to keeping busy.
"Grandma is an energetic, young, fantastic lady," said her grandson Nick Merlino.
"I've had a happy life," Harriet Merlino said. "I can't complain."
"Go for 106, Grandma," Nick said.
Contact Ana Maria Trujillo at 986-3084 or atrujillo@sfnewmexican.com.
