Quote:
Originally Posted by AutoBike
My grandfather immigrated here from Italy as a young teenager. I'm betting that just about every meal he ate in his 97 year lifespan had something containing olive oil in it. I, also remember him loving locally-made Italian sausage and eggs for breakfast.
He was in the hospital once in his life before he died. It was for a hernia that he got at age 84 for lifting something too heavy.
He died at 97 from complications after breaking his hip while pulling weeds on the side of the hill in back of his house. He was active up until his death. I'm hoping I have his genes.
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God Bless him. Sounds like my elders.....they worked harder than we ever had to, that's for sure.......never had the modern conveniences we all enjoy, ate their ethnic diet of choice and lived to ripe old ages.........obviously, the old bones age eventually.........as we all have to go from something.........I'll bet he lived a joyful life as he kept active till the end.
My Italian grandmother had all of her "marbles" until the end......but at age 95 (widowed for 50 years) she told her daughters "not to disturb her",
as a week before Easter in 1965, she took to her bed.........told her daughters she only wanted water on her night table......... we were told mid day on Good Friday that she had passed away........guess she knew it was "time".
Died in her own bed on her own terms.
She had climbed five flights of stairs, up and down, to attend mass at the corner church every day of her life in New York City........until age 90....so that was five years before she died.
She also danced the tarantella at weddings up to age 90 (after that she couldn't got to weddings due to the steps I guess)........
The aunts would find her sitting on the window sill washing the outside of the windows, five flights up.......she never would leave the tenements, although each of her children, and her brothers, begged her to come and live with them in their homes outside the city. One aunt stayed behind to care for her.........
She had come from Italy at a young age in the early 1890's. Died in 1965.
Anyway, my elderly grandmother never needed the gym !!! Five flights is a lot of exercise every day. All of her children lived to ripe old ages, with no cancer, ditto for her brothers...... My dad did pass before 70, but he was born one of a set of twin boys (the other twin died at birth, stillborn, while my dad was born with a heart defect). She had sixteen pregnancies , many sets of twins, with seven surviving children and also raised her two little brothers from Italy.........they were all totally devoted to my grandmother.
Again, a lady who managed to survive to age 95 with no surgeries and no pharmaceuticals.
As I recall, she had a wonderful sense of humor. When my husband and I got engaged at age 19, my dad and mom took us to visit her so that she could meet my fiance as she could not attend the engagement party.........she had just turned 95...........could no longer do the five flights of stairs........
Grandma took one look at this tall blondish Polish fellow and said , "Look at those beautiful GREEN eyes.....he is so handsome......too bad he's not Italian".............she always had a twinkle in her eyes and a sense of humor and could admire a young man.
My grandmother had blue eyes, which is unusual for an Italian from southern Italy.......only one of her daughters, my Godmother , also had the blue eyes.........all the rest had the dark brown eyes of their father.
Six months later she took to her bed and passed away......one month before our wedding in May 1965 when we were 20. She died in her own bed, on her own terms. Guess she just knew it was "time" ; she had mourned her deceased husband for 50 years. How many would do that nowadays?
Her daughters would try to get her to wear something other than black.
Once they convinced her to wear some white and black dresses but then her brother Stefano in Italy died......and she reverted back to the black.
I could write a book..........wonderful memories of a vibrant elder who ate all the old ethnic foods of Italy.........and some of Greece as one of her daughters married a Sicilian and much of their Italian couisine is blended with that of Greece........again, the Mediterranean diet.
There were no processed foods at all in my grandmother's lifetime............plus there wasn't a little pill for every ailment under the sun.........I'd say the last two facts also contributed to her old age....plus she had the joy of being surrounded daily by a huge family of relatives who would visit her..........they were all jolly as I recall.......and the men did smoke Italian cigars but still didn't get lung cancer. Go figure. They also drank the Italian "home made" wine, made by the uncles.
