by Laurel | April 9th, 2012
09 April 1930
Receives Scored of Callers, Many Congratulatory Messages and Bouquets
Holyoke, April 8 — Mrs. Catherine Shea of 62 Prospect Street celebrated her 102d birthday at her home today and was visited and greeted by scores of old and new friends and remembered with many bouquets. Letters and telegrams were also abundant. By nightfall the home looked more like a conservatory than a residence.
Mrs. Shea was born on Easter Tuesday, April 8, 1828, and came to Boston with her parents at the time of the great famine in Ireland. Her great grandmother lived to be more than 100, according to her memory which is yet clear though advancing years have enfeebled her frame. her grandmother came to Holyoke with the rest. She kept a boarding house on Maple street for many years, her boarders being largely young Irish girls who came even before Holyoke was a township. The grandmother also lived to be 100.
Mrs. Shea’s parents were Mr. and Mrs. Daniel O’Brien. Her husband was Jeremiah Shea of Chicopee who died 60 years ago.
Her face brightened up this morning when one of her visitors addressed her in her native tongue and she forgot her 102 years long enough to sing in the old traditional style a Gaelic folksong that has lived for centuries. Then, on hearing some one express the hope that he might see her next year, she answered, “I hope you will, but none of us knows that.”
Adapted from The Springfield Republican.
