North Adams Woman Celebrates 100th Birthday
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Filomena Demo marked 100 years on Friday.
Friends and family of the former North Adams resident gathered at Williamstown Commons to celebrate her big 100th birthday
Her son, Sergio Demo, said it is great to be able to celebrate his mother's centennial.
"It is just fantastic," Demo said. "She is healthy 100 and we are just happy that she is still with us."
She was born in North Adams in 1916, daughter of Joseph and Amelia Grande, but she grew up in Amato, Italy. Her family returned to the United States by the late 1930s, and again settled in North Adams.
Filomena had worked in a shoe shop and mills in North Adams and attended the former St. Anthony's Church. She and her husband, Elmo, were married for more than 60 years and had last lived on Chantilly Avenue.
Elmo Demo had operated a well-known barber shop on River Street in North Adams for many years. He died two years.
Sergio Demo said his mother was a great cook.
" A great cook. Artisanal everything. Everything was made from scratch down to butchering of her own chickens," he said. "Way back, I remember that as a child she would grind her own meat."
Filomena was in good company Friday and spent her birthday with her famiglia: three of her sisters, Elena Alcaro, Mafalda Musacchio and Asunta Deane, who Sergio said are all part of the "90-plus club."
Another sister, Marie Roy, lives in the state of Florida; her two brothers, Peter and Domenico, are deceased.
Besides her son and daughter-in-law, Gail, she has two grandsons, Nathan and Wyatt.
Tags: centenarian,
