by When Edith Ceccarelli was born in February 1908, Theodore Roosevelt was president, Oklahoma had just become the country’s 46th state, and women did not yet have the right to vote.
At 116 years old, Ceccarelli is the oldest known person in the United States and the second oldest on Earth. She has lived through two world wars, the arrival of the Ford Model T and the two deadliest pandemics in American history.
For most of that time, he has lived in one place: Willits, a town hidden among the redwood forests of California that was once known for logging, but may now be better known for Ms. Ceccarelli. .
At Willits City Hall, where redwoods tower 100 feet high, a gold-framed photograph of Ms. Ceccarelli sits in a display case. Last year, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors proclaimed February 5 as a day to celebrate the county’s favorite daughter.
“When she turned 100, the whole community was amazed and she became kind of a local celebrity,” said Mayor Saprina Rodriguez, who at 52 is less than half Ms. Ceccarelli’s age.
Located in a valley surrounded by forested peaks in rural Mendocino County in California’s northern coastal region, Willits prospered from its booming lumber industry when Ms. Ceccarelli was a child. But that boom is long gone and Willits remains a small working-class community of about 5,000 people.
Because it’s about 30 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, Willits has never attracted the tourists who flock to coastal destinations like Mendocino and Fort Bragg, with their Instagrammable wineries and cabins perched on seaside cliffs, along with whale watching opportunities.
But none of those places have Ms. Ceccarelli.
On Sunday, Willits hosted its annual celebration for its most treasured resident, who watched from the porch of his residence. It was raining, the beginning of another atmospheric river (what they simply called downpours for most of Mrs. Ceccarelli’s life), but no one in Willits thought to cancel the annual festivities.
A parade of police cruisers and fire trucks with flashing lights passed by. Then a garbage truck. Sedans adorned with garlands, balloons and flowers followed, carrying residents who waved and sang to their beloved Edie.
“She’s a local icon,” said Suzanne Picetti-Johnson, a former Willits resident who had donned a rain jacket and beanie and was leading a van with “Happy Sweet 116!” scrawled on her back window. “She has always been a delight and we are delighted to celebrate her for another year.”
On February 5, 1908, Edith Recagno was born by her aunt in a house in Willits that her father had built by hand. The house had no electricity or running water, so a hand-dug well provided the family with drinking water and, instead of a refrigerator, a cool place to hang milk and meat.
She was the first of seven children born to Agostino and Maria Recagno, Italian immigrants drawn to Mendocino County by opportunity. Willits, where bright green moss covers tree trunks and giant ferns sprawl along the banks of icy streams, was settled by pioneer ranchers in the 1850s when fortune seekers flocked to California during Gold Rush.
But then big trees became big business here. Groves of ancient redwoods and other trees were cut down and shipped south to help build a rapidly growing San Francisco. Mrs. Ceccarelli’s father worked as a carpenter to extend the railroad to Willits, which in the early 1900s allowed tourists from the Bay Area to come to vacation in the fresh air of the Redwood Empire mountains. For $2.50 a night, guests at the 100-room Willits Hotel enjoyed tennis courts, a bowling alley, and a dining room known as the best in north San Francisco.
As a child, Ceccarelli played basketball, tennis and saxophone (her mother had to save money to buy the instrument) and loved to sing and dance. She recalled that her father, who opened a grocery store in Willits in 1916, would chop firewood and bring it home after work.
“He would sit with us after dinner and help us read,” Mrs. Ceccarelli once said. wrote. “He only had a third-grade education, but he was smart. “I can still see the oil lamp on the table where we read.”
From there, Ms. Ceccarelli’s life developed like that of many others. She married her high school sweetheart, Elmer Keenan, when she was 25, and they moved to nearby Santa Rosa, where he accepted a job as a typesetter at The Press Democrat newspaper. The couple soon adopted a daughter. In 1971, after her husband retired, the couple returned to Willits.
Ceccarelli continued to age, but not everyone in his life was so lucky. Her husband died in 1984, after more than 50 years of marriage. Ms. Ceccarelli remarried and her second husband, Charles Ceccarelli, died in 1990. Their daughter died, aged 64, in 2003. Ms. Ceccarelli has since survived her six younger siblings, as well as his three granddaughters, each of whom died in their 40s due to a genetic condition.
“They’re all gone, missing for years and years,” said Evelyn Persico, 84, as she flipped through albums of black-and-white photographs captioned in Ceccarelli’s cursive. Persico, who is married to Ceccarelli’s second cousin and lives on a ranch in Willits, is one of his few remaining relatives.
So, as her 100th birthday approached in 2008, Mrs. Ceccarelli herself extended the invitation to all the Willits. Despite decades of changes, such as Highway 101 running through Main Street and the growth of marijuana farms, Willits remained a tight-knit community. The elegant Mrs. Ceccarelli had become known for never missing a dance at the senior center and for her daily walks around town.
Dressed in a fuchsia suit and heels, she danced a waltz with more than 500 people who had come to celebrate her new centenary status, and the then mayor placed a tiara in her white hair.
Thereafter, Ms. Ceccarelli’s birthday each year is celebrated with a party, luncheon or, in the Covid era, a parade, open to all Willits residents. Often dressed in a colorful scarf and pearls, she passed on her wisdom on how to live a long life: “Have a couple of fingers of red wine with dinner and mind your own business.”
Other years, he regaled guests with stories of days gone by, how he met a man who had had lunch with Abraham Lincoln or how he heard all the bells in Willits ring on November 11, 1918, signaling the end of World War I. .
“I like the small town, you meet more people,” Ceccarelli said. said the local newspaper just before his 107th birthday party. “You go to a big city and you don’t know anyone.”
When her lifelong dance partner died, she once again turned to Willits for support. She placed an ad in the local newspaper:
“I, Edith Ceccarelli, also known as ‘Edie’ by her family and many friends, would like to continue dancing,” she says. wrote in 2012. “Dancing keeps your limbs strong. What is better than holding a beautiful lady in your arms and dancing a beautiful waltz or two-step together?
“Try it, you’ll like it,” he added, along with his phone number. She was 104 years old at the time.
Mrs Ceccarelli lived alone until she was 107 and then moved to a nursing home in Willits. She has now lived on average 37 years longer than American women. The only person known to be older than her is María Branyas Morera, who lives in Spain, but was born in San Francisco 11 months before Ms. Ceccarelli.
The town has taken over planning his birthday parties, as his dementia has recently progressed, so he is not always aware of what is happening. The morning of her party, she seemed satisfied knowing that everyone was there to help her. She enjoyed trying their carrot cake emblazoned with “116.”
“I marvel at her,” said Persico, who greeted Ceccarelli that day with a kiss on the forehead. “I can’t believe this little Italian baby has such an amazing longevity record, coming from such a small town like us.”
