Bloomingdale woman celebrates 102nd birthday in style

Buying candles for Angeline Ruggiero's birthday cake can be an expensive proposition.

Angeline celebrated her 102nd birthday Jan. 6 with friends, family and staff at Alden Valley Ridge Rehabilitation and Health Care Center in Bloomingdale, where she has been a resident since 2008.

Bloomingdale Mayor Robert Iden was on hand to declare it Angeline Ruggiero Day in the village.

Born in 1909 in Chicago, Angeline grew up in a large Polish and Italian family. The oldest of eight siblings, she worked as a lab and X-ray technician after high school. She was married for 25 years and has a daughter and son.

Angeline says she loved to visit New York City and saw a young performer named Frank Sinatra at the Astro Theatre when he was beginning his career.

She says she has a passion for meeting people from all over the word, developing relationships and learning foreign languages. She speaks Polish, Italian, French, German, Spanish and Russian.

She also says she has fond memories of road trips in a Winnebago with her best girlfriends, traveling everywhere from Nova Scotia to California.

Her specialty was dancing. She has tales of “Nickel and Dime” dances in her teens and memories of fun spent on dance floors across the country.

Ask her about her philosophy after 102 years and it's remarkably simple.

“It's a good life if you make it one,” she says. “Give in to sad times for a half-hour; then let sadness go and keep moving forward. Life is too short!”