ABINGTON – Spirited, upright, fast to grin and snort, Adele Dombrowski celebrated her a hundredth birthday Aug. 10 after which expected every other special day in September – her “criminal birthday.”
“I’ve two birthdays,” she defined.
Dombrowski was once born Adele Milewski in Lowell on Aug. 10,1922. Her mom, who got here from Poland and had 9 young children, all the time used a midwife and had a clergyman report the birthdays.
“In Polish, she advised him I used to be born on Aug. 10,” Dombrowski stated. For 19 years, that was once the date she celebrated.
When she was once 20 and engaged to marry Charles Dombrowski in 1941, she wanted a replica of her start certificates from Lowell Town Corridor.
“It got here again and it stated Sept. 16,” she stated. “So, from then on, I celebrated each birthdays, however Sept. 16 is my criminal start certificates.”
That is why Dombrowski discovered herself doing the honors in every single place once more closing Friday at her 2d a hundredth celebration, on the Abington Senior Middle.
Two of her granddaughters flew into Boston, Kathy Bradley from Missouri and Michelle Tietjen from New Mexico. They rented the massive serve as room on the senior middle and invited friends and family to a 2 p.m. birthday party.
For her particular centenarian reward, they chose an iPhone, assured their grandmother, who mastered the usage of a camcorder twenty years in the past, would be capable to learn to use FaceTime on her telephone.
At 1:45 p.m., the senior middle van, pushed by means of Michelle Thetonia, picked up Dombrowski’s neighbors at Vinson Blanchard Lawn Flats, the city’s senior housing advanced the place she has lived for 30 years.
As her buddies arrived, she stood beside her rollator walker to greet them. Dressed in a tiara, lengthy white pearls and a white sash that learn “It is my a hundredth birthday,” she beamed.
On a desk had been small items and playing cards, together with one hand-crafted by means of a woman named Lily.
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“Satisfied Birthday Mrs. Dombrowski!” it learn. “I will be able to’t thanks sufficient for knitting Lovey! Lovey has transform one of these large a part of my lifestyles. I convey her far and wide with me! Satisfied 100!” A photograph confirmed a knit hat and shawl Dombrowski made.
Her house well being aide, Karen Sampson from Outdated Colony Elder Products and services, had introduced Pearl Kearns, 97, who performs bingo together with her each Monday on the senior middle.
“Adele in reality has her wits about her,” Sampson stated. “She’s a fantastic, down-to-earth individual.”
State Sen. John Keenan and state Rep. Alyson Sullivan offered her with authentic state citations of congratulations and best possible needs.
“It is overwhelming,” Dombrowski stated. “I by no means by no means dreamt I might reside this lengthy. . . . There have been a couple of occasions when I did not assume I used to be going to make it. I had 3 main surgical procedures, however I recovered and God was once my co-pilot all of the means.”
As she spoke in regards to the ups and downs on “the lengthy ladder of lifestyles,” Dombrowski stated she was once thankful “God gave me those additional years to experience.”
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Dombrowski was once one among seven kids who all lived previous 80. The one different survivor, her sister Mary Griffin, of Abington, died in Might at age 97.
After she misplaced her husband to most cancers in 1986 and two of her kids to juvenile diabetes, each at age 29, in 1975 and 1979, she stated, “There have been a couple of occasions I gave up. I have been up and down the ladder of lifestyles a couple of occasions.”
When she was once 2, her folks moved to Hanover so her father may just paintings on the Nationwide Fireworks Co.
“The ones had been the Despair years and we survived as a result of my dad all the time had cattle and a lawn and an actual out of date means,” she stated.
She discovered paintings she liked with different native households as a live-in babysitter and caregiver.
After she married Charles Dombrowski in 1941, they moved to Abington and had 4 kids: the past due Nancy Dombrowski; Dianne Murray, of Florida; the past due Charles Dombrowski Jr.; and James Dombrowski, of Abington. She has six grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren.
She labored as a seamstress within the garment trade and was once the primary senior aide on the Abington Council on Ageing.
She loved making a song with the refrain Cohesion Blue, dancing the polka, doing ornamental arts, knitting, gardening and bingo. She is thought of as the circle of relatives historian and, after studying to make use of the camcorder, “she has taken satisfaction in documenting the lives, tales and personalities of her circle of relatives and ceaselessly replaying her recordings of polka tune,” Bradley stated.
Dombrowski helped carry her granddaughter, Michelle, who stated she liked listening to the tales Dombrowski introduced house from the senior middle. A favourite story was once of the senior who seemed far and wide for her favourite blue birthday party get dressed, then handed a reflect and noticed she already had it on.
“Adele has a super reminiscence and is as spry as they arrive,” Suzanne Djusberg, director of the Abington Council on Ageing, stated. “They run beautiful sturdy and feisty in Abington.”
Achieve Sue Scheible at [email protected].
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