Lillian Sweeny, active 'Flower Girl' at her adult community, dies at 103

Lillian Sweeny raised seven children, learned in midlife to ride matching motorcycles with her husband and zip-lined as a senior on a dare. Living to almost 104 was an adventure.

After her husband died at age 64, she lived another lifetime in a different world from Westbury’s suburban bliss, her family said. She became one of the “Flower Girls,” a group of older women who lived in a Melville adult community and went on vacations, to concerts and on other experiences together, relatives said.

“I was always impressed with her ability to adapt,” said her eldest child, Dennis Sweeny, of Deer Park and Bradenton, Florida.

Lillian Sweeny, who had a stint as a real estate agent, died Aug. 29. The longtime Westbury and Melville resident was 16 days shy of turning 104.

Born on Sept. 14, 1921, in West New York, New Jersey, Lillian was a toddler when her mother died so her aunt raised her while her older sister lived with their father, a tugboat pilot, her son said. As she got older, he said, she was a little “rebellious,” going off to Manhattan to see shows.

She met her love, Joseph Sweeny, when both were out with friends, and they married in 1946 after his return from serving in the Army in Italy.

They bought what started as a two-bedroom Levitt house in Westbury.

“Every time my mother was expecting, she’d say, ‘Joe it’s time, we need to move,’ and he would add another room to the house,” Sweeny said. “By the time he sold the house, we had 12 or 13 rooms with a couple bathrooms and a pool in the backyard. ... He was determined that each one of us would be able to have our own bedroom.”

Lillian Sweeny dedicated herself to being “cook and chief bottle washer” to a household of seven children born over 15 years, relatives said. While her husband worked as a claims adjuster, attended law school at night at her behest, then opened his law practice, the matriarch immersed herself in her children’s activities, from school to clubs.

The parents were partners, even when life was not peaches and cream, their son said: “My mother’s pretty strong-willed and she would not hesitate to butt heads with my father if she didn’t agree with something that was going on."”

But together, the couple savored the fledgling suburbia that was Long Island after the war, family members said. They took turns hosting neighborhood parties, where the adults danced to vinyl records. They bought a Montauk house and a boat.

One wedding anniversary, when Lillian was about 60, Joe presented matching motorcycles as a gift, family members said, and she exclaimed, “Good Lord, Joe, what are you trying to do to me?”

“There was always something to laugh about,” recalled Judy Clarke, daughter of the couple’s neighbors and best friends. “She was an uplifter.”

A few years later, in 1987, Joe Sweeny died of cancer.

Adages always got the matriarch through bad times, relatives said, and this time it was mind over matter.

She moved into a Melville adult community and for years filled her social life with her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Sweeny was already in her 80s when her great-grandson Peter Fritscher was born, but she often attended his gymnastic competitions and other events.

“I was always blown away that she was always so with it and healthy and physically active for her age,” said Fritscher, of St. James. “She would always say, ‘If you don’t use it, you lose it.’ “

After travels with the Flower Girls, her tales of visits to Japan, Ireland, France, China and other places made listeners laugh. It was in Costa Rica that she fulfilled a dare from a son-in-law by zip-lining.

“She always had this very strong will to live the best life she could,” said granddaughter Eileen Fritscher, of St. James. “Age was just a number.”

Besides her son Dennis, granddaughter Eileen, and great-grandson Peter, she is survived by children Brian Sweeny, of Shelter Island and Marathon Key, Florida; Kathleen Kelly, of Port Jefferson, Patricia Giambalvo, of Dix Hills, Richard Sweeny of Long Beach, and Michael Sweeny, of Dix Hills; 16 other grandchildren; and 11 more great-grandchildren. Her son Robert Sweeny predeceased her.

A prayer service was held Sept. 4 at the Mangano Family Funeral Homes in Deer Park, followed by burial at Cemetery of the Holy Rood in Westbury.