By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter
Photo/Melanie Petrucci
Northborough – On July 6, Beaumont Whitney Place Rehabilitation Skilled Nursing Facility honored resident Natalie Cipro with a 100th birthday celebration.
Cipro was born July 6, 1918, in Worcester on a farm that was located on property now occupied by the UMass Memorial Medical Center on Lake Avenue.
The party included flowers, gifts, cake and coffee. Cipro loves her coffee. She also loves to sing. After everyone sang “Happy Birthday,” she led the group in a rendition of “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”
Family in attendance included her two sons Tony and John. Tony lives in the area but John flew in from San Diego, Calif., for the occasion. Also in attendance were her nephew Anthony Turano and his grandson Gino, daughters-in-law Ann Marie and Patti Cipro and Cathy and Robert Kiellinen.
Tony shared that his mother was sitting on the front porch of a boarding house in Falmouth, where she was living in December of 1941, when she and his father heard the news about the Bombing of Pearl Harbor. Twenty days later, they were married and he was shipped overseas.
During World War II, she worked for the Norton Company and later went into business selling real estate. Cipro was known locally as “The Real Estate Lady.” Eventually, she and her husband bought their own home in Falmouth and divided their time between Shrewsbury and the Cape while raising their two sons.
“Natalie has been living with us for two years now,” said Director of Recreation Cindy Pelligrini. “She has a wonderful family and grandchildren…. She is just a joy in our home and we love her very much.”
