Catholic woman looks back on 108 years

Intermountain Catholic

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Anna Marie Mancuso

MURRAY — Anna Marie Mancuso is 108 years old and just keeps going.

She lived on her own in Grand Junction, Colo., until she was 104, and then came to Utah to live with her daughter, Rose Morelli. They are members of Saint Vincent de Paul Parish in Salt Lake City.

Mancuso has never spent a night in the hospital.

"I don’t trust doctors," she said. "I have a bad knee and my doctor said if he knew I was going to live to be 100, he would have replaced it when I was 80."

Mancuso was born in Flushing, Queens, N.Y., on Feb. 18, 1904, the third of seven siblings. Her father worked for the railroad. "We moved to Denver when I was quite young because the doctor told my mother the climate in New York was bad for her health. She also was blind and had me stay home from school to care for her and to cook for my brothers and sisters. I only went to the eighth grade."

Mancuso’s oldest sister taught her to sew. "My oldest sister died when she was 22, during the 1920 flu epidemic, just before her wedding and she was buried in her wedding gown," said Mancuso. "My friend’s dad had a wedding shop and we used to sew near the front window and attract a lot of attention. We started a little business teaching classes sewing wedding gowns, bridesmaid dresses, and flower girls’ and boys’ outfits. I made my own wedding gown with beads and a scalloped hemline."

Mancuso met her husband, Frank Mancuso, at a movie theater in Denver. "We only paid 10 cents to get in," she said. "We saw a comedy and Frank was there with his buddies. I was laughing, and he asked his friend who that girl was who was laughing because I sure attracted his attention. His friend and my sister introduced us."

When Mancuso told her mother that she had met a very nice boy who wanted to marry her, her mother said, "‘No, you can’t marry him because he’ll take you away from here.’ She already had someone picked out for me, but I liked my husband better," Mancuso said.

Frank Mancuso lived in Grand Junction, Colo., so the couple corresponded for three years because they couldn’t afford to get married. "Frank was a good man," said Mancuso. "He was born in Italy but came to Colorado when he was 5. He was the oldest of 14 brothers and sisters and there were three sets of twins."

The couple was married in 1926 at Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Denver. Rose was the first of their three children, born in 1927. "My third child only lived a year," Mancuso said through tears. "She was a pretty baby with golden hair, skin as fair as snow and blue eyes. She was a smart little baby. She died of the flu. We had a white hearse for her and six little girls as pall bearers all dressed in white to carry the casket. She was the talk of the town."

Frank died in 1999 after the couple had been married 73 years.

Mancuso was a homemaker who cared for her children, sewed their clothes and canned foods including fruits and vegetables from her garden. One of her favorite birthday gifts was a new stove her husband gave her because all she had to do was turn the knob. "I didn’t have to haul coal through the house anymore," she said.

"I liked sewing for my family," Mancuso said. "If I didn’t have a pattern, I used to draw it on a newspaper and cut out the pattern on the material; I always had good luck."

Mancuso’s weekly spaghetti and meatball dinners were a family favorite, she said. For her 100th birthday, she cooked for the family party.

Mancuso has three grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.