Long Beach woman celebrates 101st birthday

Five days a week, Fay Bill walks more than a mile from her niece's home in Long Beach to the JASA Long Beach Senior Citizen Center, where she has volunteered for the past five years.

Tuesday, after receiving a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" from the lunch crowd at the center, Fay walked to the front of the ballroom in her glittery shoes and matching purple skirt and shirt, and blew out the candles on her 101st birthday cake.

"I walk because if I did not walk I'd be a dead head," said Bill. "Before I came to Long Beach, I always wore high heels."

Bill is a one-woman "Welcome Wagon" for seniors who visit the center, according to JASA Long Beach Senior Services director, Gloria Lebeaux, of Merrick. She is an "engaging, kind person who attempts to settle any differences between people in the center," she said.

"I'm lucky," said Bill. "Volunteering gives me something to do and I'm happy when I have something to do."

Bill is not new to volunteering. Before she started at the Long Beach JASA center, she volunteered working with families in the surgical section at the Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie for 30 years.

"I love to help people," said Bill. "It's nice to go to people and assure them that everything will be OK."

Bill was born in 1909 in the Bronx, where she lived until moving to Mount Vernon at age 30. Her husband Walter died in 1993. She taught elementary grades at a Bronx school for 44 years.

"It was a pleasure seeing children learn in front of you," said Bill. "It was my responsibility to make sure they did what they had to do."

While Bill never had any kids herself, her "genuinely caring and very motherly attitude," has made her a bright force at the senior center, said Lebeaux.

"She's the person that motivates me to get up each day," said Bonni Goetz, 50, of Lido Beach, assistant project director at the center. "She has taught me that age is just a number and that you need to live every day to the fullest with a positive attitude."

JASA, the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged, provides support for more than 18,000 older adults in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, and Long Island, according to JASA's website. Services are planned and coordinated by more than 1,000 volunteers.

"She is just a pleasure," said Gloria Goldberg, a senior citizen and friend of Bill's who has been visiting the Long Beach center for four years. "She is a magnet that draws people. We all love her."

In her 101 years, Bill said, "kindness," is the greatest lesson she has learned in life. "When you're nice, in return, you gain a lot," said Bill. "You gain much more than you have given."

What was her 101st birthday wish?

"I'd like to get a little older," she said laughing. "Now that I am 101, I have the opportunity to tell people, Oh you're a baby, keep still."