ANNOUNCER: Dick Sinclair's Polka Parade.

[lively music] Thank you, folks.

Welcome once again for Farmer John.

I'm Dick Sinclair, we have the boys and the band, the dancers, the singers, the whole gang here tonight, we hope you'll enjoy our program.

First of all, here's our all star Polka Band.

[lively playful music] [lively playful music] [lively playful music] [lively playful music] [lively playful music] [lively playful music] [lively playful music] [audience applauding] [birds chirping] [door clicks] [car engine rumbling] [door clicks] [car engine rumbling] ♪ To the sea ♪ ♪ Fly like an eagle, let my spirit carry me ♪ ♪ I want to fly like an eagle ♪ ♪ Till I'm free ♪ PERSON: She always has said that she has to keep moving and that's her secret.

She just can't slow down.

I don't think it's in her to slow down.

PERSON 2: Mom goes where she's needed.

If my sister needs something, mom's there.

My brother needs something, she's there.

PERSON 3: She just did everything.

She worked, she took care of the family, she put up with my dad.

She's just a dynamo.

She doesn't stop.

I hope I have that when I'm 102 years old.

[people muttering] [water sloshing] [people muttering] By car from my to California.

PERSON 4: Oh my goodness.

Of my finger nails, and it- Stand at one spot here in four states.

PERSON 5: So grandma, would you like anything for your potato?

[all laughing] PERSON 3: Jim, do you wanna do the toast?

Ah, mom, we thought your 70th birthday was your last one, here we are, 32 years later.

Happy birthday, mom.

PERSON 3: Happy birthday.

PERSON 5: Happy birthday, grandma.

Aria was born one day after her 95th birthday.

So they're exactly 95 years apart.

Amazing.

Well.

PAULINE: That was so special.

Yeah.

Wherever I'm, I'll ask him, and he'll say he's fine, he's fine, so take his word for it.

Did he wanna talk to anybody else?

He's all done.

He's all done?

Okay.

He said not everybody, I didn't shut her up.

No, it hung up.

[people chattering] Pauline has been a patient of mine for approximately 12, 13 years.

I've never yet seen Pauline when she's been acutely ill.

She's just comes in for checkups, and typically starts off the visit with, I'm not sure why I'm here, I feel fine.

[kids chattering] KID: Thank you.

She's lean, she eats well, she is physically active, that's remarkable.

Without exaggeration, she has the blood work that I would see in a 25-year-old girl.

[playful music] We grew up poor, but my mother and father were good to us kids all the time.

Whenever she could, she'd make a treat for us.

I was five years old when we moved to the farm.

The grass around the place was so high, nobody had lived in it for a long time.

My mother said she was forever looking for us.

She'd see the grass move.

She knew there was a kid in there somewhere.

Work was just an everyday thing to us.

No matter what it was, it had to be done, and we did it.

I pitched hay with a pitchfork.

I used to hoe and plant.

Help with the milk and then clean in the barn and everything.

One thing after another you did, you sewed, you cooked, you cleaned the house, and whatever.

INTERVIEWER: What year did electricity come to your family's house?

Actually, after I moved out.

[birds chirping] Somebody who is over a hundred years old today really saw, I think, some of the most fascinating years in the history of the United States.

Agrarian economy, still quite strong, but the industrialization of America is forthcoming.

The happiness and the joy and the jazz of the 1920s, and then that huge crash in the 1930s where nobody had anything.

It was difficult for everybody in this town as it would be across the country, we were still at the heights of the Great Depression.

I was 10 years old when the depression hit and it hurt a lot of people in town.

But as far as on the farms, we had milk, we had vegetables, we had meat and everything else 'cause it was growing there on the farm.

[somber music] Then I needed new shoes and my mother said she didn't have money for shoes right then.

And so, I thought, well, maybe it's time for me to quit school, and that's what I did.

And I came to Erie to work.

Even during the Depression, Erie would've been a town that was bustling.

There are opportunities for young women like Pauline, who are 16, moving to the city, looking for something to sustain themselves and domestic jobs actually provided them opportunities.

I was 16 years old and I worked in the house that's behind me as to keep the house clean and do the cooking and everything.

I lived right there with them, my bedroom was on the third floor.

I worked for the Hagen-Locker's for two and a half years and I would have at least two Sundays off every month.

They were up in the money and stuff, and there was a lot of silverware to polish and stuff like that.

They, you had an entranceway and a big entrance hall, then a big living room, then a big dining room.

The Hagen-Locker home where Pauline worked was probably 1890s era house, had originally a very grand appearance and it's just a few blocks from downtown.

All the bankers and attorneys and industrial leaders chose to live here on Millionaires Row.

A lot of these houses have large rooms on the third floor.

They didn't have all the stuff we have today to occupy our time.

So, they needed the spaces in these homes to entertain.

PERSON 6: Thank you, Freddy.

Thank you, Tom.

PERSON 7: Will you dance?

PERSON 6: Oh, excuse me.

Thank you.

Everything was so beautiful in there and set up so nice that it was hard to live different after living in that house.

[birds chirping] There's really four pillars that you see that are classic in centenarians.

First of all, almost all centenarians are lean.

This is a cherry pie.

I make my own crust, I do not buy crust.

The second pillar is they have tight family bonds.

I know you'd ask that question, I forgot to count, but, I had 5 children, and, grandchildren they're probably are about 15, great-grandchildren, around 30.

The third is overall a positive attitude/spirituality.

I don't always go to church every Sunday, but I'm still Catholic and I still believe in a God.

What engineer designs your body and what manufacturer manufactured it to be so perfect that it could do everything it does.

And there is no answer for that.

The fourth pillar is really, sort of tying in with the very first one, but that is really staying active.

I like to polka and square dance.

We went to clubs dancing, like 1939 to 1940.

♪ Pick them up and lay them down ♪ ♪ Where you go all around the town, separate ♪ Kinda slowed down after that, you know?

[upbeat music] I went into labor the day before New Year's and it was a long labor and my doctor was here at this club, but he stayed sober until the baby was finally born.

INTERVIEWER: Where was your husband?

My husband was out having a good time too.

He was not at all.

And he didn't realize I was that close to delivering the baby, so.

I mean, I just heard rumors that he was at another club in Erie and, but I don't understand why he wasn't with my mother and, but, he wasn't.

And that's all there is, that's all I can say about that.

He was the first baby in the city of Erie New Year's Day, like about three o'clock in the morning.

And the newspaper people were there at six o'clock waking me up to take a picture so they could get it into the newspaper for the day.

So that was funny.

[telephone ringing] Hello?

PERSON 8: Is Barn there?

Yes, hold on a minute.

[indistinct TV commentary] Hello.

[indistinct TV commentary] Oh, yeah.

My oldest son lives here with me.

It's good company.

We get along very well together.

And, I did with all my children, so, actually, it was good company when somebody moved in with me for a while and I wasn't alone.

She might disagree a little bit when I go up to the horse racing track, but she doesn't say anything.

My sisters talked me into moving into my mother because she was getting older and I could take care of her.

And here it ends up now, with all my health problems, she's taking care of me on her one iron pill a day, that's all she takes.

I'm glad I was the hairdresser of the family that I got to have that time, my own time with my grandma.

Okay.

She was always there for everybody.

And now my dad, Barney, needs her and she's there for him.

I mean she's 102 and he needs her.

Okay.

[lively music] Okay, this is a picture of me and my children from the oldest down, that's Bernard.

Casper was the second, we always called him Kelly.

Theodore was the third child.

And then Kathy and then James.

[lively music] We were war babies.

I was born in 1946.

Although my dad didn't go off to war, obviously, a lot of men did and there was a big population burst.

[playful music] Our economy in Erie and the country was extremely strong coming out of World War II.

Manufacturers produced parts for tanks, ammunitions, and who's standing behind the machines?

Our women.

NARRATOR: It happened that a woman's delicate touch enabled her even to excel men in certain precision operations.

[playful music] In the mid 20th century, Erie, what was going on here really mirrored what was going on in the country.

It was a thriving economy.

We were, without a doubt the biggest economy in the world.

So, there were lots of different type of foundries and machine shops, and we have General Electric.

Oh, it's a quaint looking sky ride.

We had many different industries here that took products all over the world.

NARRATOR: Erie is an important transportation center.

It is a major port to the inland seas.

KYLE: There's the Koehler Brewery, there's Zurn Industries.

Level manufacturing had patents on a number of different types of mousetraps.

Griswold frying pans.

NARRATOR: Business leaders organize ribbon cutting ceremonies.

They know these new interstate roads will contribute much to the area's economic expansion.

You know, Erie was a beer and bowling town as they used to say.

There was a bar in a bowling alley in just about every neighborhood across the city.

The medium income of working class families from the mid '40s to the about 1973, more than doubled.

People were able to live a solid middle class lifestyle.

First car I drove was a used car.

It was a Plymouth, I believe.

The spark plug wires instead of having wire were filled with, like a sand.

And every time we hit a bump and that shifted, the motor would shut off.

A few years later I bought a new car, DeSoto.

[car engine rumbling] We rented an apartment on Reed Street for quite a while and then bought a house on Holland Street.

Then my husband wanted a business, so, he borrowed the money from GE and bought the store in Wesleyville before I even knew it.

INTERVIEWER: He bought a store and you didn't know when he did it?

No, I didn't know he did it.

Actually, he bought me a job.

He didn't know what to do out in the store with the customers coming and going.

So right off the bat, I've had a full-time job.

Rich Mahogany grain and this lovely limed Oak.

Well these finishes are- We sold regular appliances and also television and radios.

Small things like toasters and electric fry pans and things.

[playful music] [somber music] The wholesalers would put on these different contests just to try to get people to sell more.

So that's how I won a beautiful squirrel scarf, probably about 8 or 10 inches wide.

The second or third year we were there, probably about 1955 or six is when I won this fur jacket.

It was for selling so many Westinghouse washers or dryers.

Different companies did things like that back then.

We had quite a few people that were almost blind and could barely see.

I learned how to teach them to feel the difference on the knobs so that they knew what position something like the stove was in that drew extra customers into us too.

The Undertaker in Wesleyville bought quite a few appliances and things from us.

He would always help widows that just lost their husbands and if they didn't know too much about finances and things and he'd say to me, well, she can't afford so much so don't sell her anything expensive.

So we had a good relationship there with the Undertaker also.

He brought in quite a few widows.

[playful music] I enjoyed working in the store all day and I was there every day, all day when the store was opened and my children were in the house behind me.

The house in the store were really a doorway apart.

Anytime as kids we were fighting, it got too loud.

She would step in from the store and say, you kids gotta have to be quiet down the store's open.

I remember that saying, the store's open.

It was not a really hard job raising them.

They all behaved.

[singing in foreign language] I remember sharing a bedroom with Teddy and she smoked, which my mother didn't know about.

And so when she heard my mother coming up the stairs, she would push her cigarette and ashtray under the bed and I was always afraid the bed would catch on fire.

My sisters were younger, of course, Jimmy and them came along, but at times we would play Monopoly or have big card games.

They were the kids though, you know?

And Caz and I were the big brothers.

[singing in foreign language] Tell you one, another little incident that happened.

We were carrying on up in the bedroom, I think Jimmy or Caz and I were fighting little bit.

And my dad came up, took his strap off, took his belt off, was gonna beat us and I, I snaked down in between the wall and the mattress and left, left poor Casper on top of the bed to take that beating while I was screaming like I was getting beat, but.

But I was down in between the wall and the mattress and I avoided it.

Kelly never forgive me for that.

Her nickname, we used Kelly, everybody called him Kelly all the way through school and everything else.

So rather than Casper, so, but his father wanted Casper for a name, so that's what he got.

And we were very, very close.

We played on football together and baseball together.

But his real interest was in painting and in doing, I don't know, but just say, culture stuff.

[somber music] This is a painting that my son Casper did when he was about 12 years old.

[somber music] We visited the Rutkowski Family Farm in Waterford every couple of weeks or so.

That might've been Bernard right there.

All my uncles would come and my aunts and they'd bring their kids.

Everybody was at the farm every Sunday.

And my grandmother would make these big chicken dinners.

Everybody loves Grandma Pauly's cook, everybody.

She was a damn good cook.

Polish food, Polish sausage and Czarnina or duck soup.

We're in the New Central Market, Urbaniak Brothers New Central Market in Erie, Pennsylvania.

My brother and I are part of the Urbaniak legacy that's here for almost a hundred years.

And we're in our building built by our father.

We still offer all the product that people like Pauline perhaps bought 50 years ago, 60 years ago and more.

And we still have the old timers that ask us, is this the same recipe?

That particular generation didn't have a whole lot.

They didn't go a lot of places.

They didn't have much, they didn't have many of anything.

One of the things that they did have access to was food.

They didn't mind spending an hour and a half or two hours or three hours on a meal.

They took a lot of pride in taking a regular piece of meat or a regular piece of poultry and making it into something special.

Even to this day, every supper time here, she's 102, I'm 83, It's a gourmet supper every supper we have.

My father's, I had a lot of admiration for what he did and what he developed.

He was just a house electrician that kept going up and up and up.

And he built himself up as a electrical contractor where he was wiring high schools and dormitories, and, I mean big time jobs.

What I have is one of the bills from one of the electrical jobs we used to do.

In 1960, you didn't have all these computers and everything to do things.

So, this was all done with my brain and pen and pencil.

I did all the billing and I had no education for anything like that.

I didn't know how to type, I never used a typewriter before.

I didn't know anything about that, but I was good in arithmetic and stuff.

So, I had to manage, teach myself to type.

I had to make up catalogs.

And even if there was a ten cent mistake, you did not get paid for that month.

INTERVIEWER: So your husband was kind of your boss?

Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: How was that?

Not too bad.

'Cause some of this, he didn't know what to do with, and I did.

[typewriters clacking] Pauline was probably one of the earlier women working in the workplace.

When I was in high school, most of my high school friends, their mothers didn't work, they were always home.

I remember feeling bad though that she wasn't at school activities.

I was a majorette.

And sometimes we would march down from the school to the football field and we would have to cut a corner close to the store and she would come out and watch me go around the corner.

It's a good thing that the kids did help in the house.

And if I had to had extra help in the store, they also helped in the store waiting on customers.

They could do that, so, they were good at it, so.

INTERVIEWER: But what was happening with Benjamin?

Why wasn't he helping out doing his part?

Well, he was too much of an alcoholic.

He just didn't care.

He never actually looked at the bills and what had to be paid.

He was never, might as well say, never completely sober, so.

Living with my dad was an absolute challenge.

I remember my dad confronting your dad, challenging him to a fight.

Come out on the street, we'll fight it out.

We'll see who's stronger.

And Jim and I were the youngest and we bonded sitting at the top of the stairs in the middle of the night, often crying.

'Cause my dad was downstairs throwing things.

I think for my sister, Kathleen and I, we had, we had some tough days, some tough nights, and I think mom knew that.

We tried to get help for him, but he wouldn't go for help.

We all did.

I did, his children did, didn't do any good.

[somber music] [somber music] My mother, you know, was great in the appliances, but my father was on the electrical end of the business and that sort of declined.

And in fact, one or two years there, it declined pretty bad.

[car engine purring] Erie was the center of this corner of Pennsylvania and it grew, and as it grew at annex land, and then at some point it stopped.

You see whole blocks of 19th century buildings that were just bulldozed.

There was probably 20 buildings on this block and they completely cleared it and they made it a parking lot.

The whole West side of a downtown that spent 150 years building itself, we currently have three buildings that predate World War II.

In the 1970s, we had the construction of the Mill Creek Mall outside of town.

And all of a sudden the old stores downtown that had thrived were now unable to compete.

Slowly but surely many of those mom and pop businesses that you would see all over the city, they started to close up and through the mid '70s and then by the '80s it almost seems that they were all gone.

Really, I mean, the property tax is like the city's paycheck.

And you find that if you can't increase your paycheck, but your expenses keep going up.

I mean, that's like the definition of decline.

And then now there was not enough money coming in, so I took a nighttime job and kept the store open all day and worked from 11 at night until 7 in the morning in the hospital.

So I was busy, pretty busy there for quite a few years.

[somber music] And as the years went on, my older brothers were out of the house.

And I still remember listening to my dad scream at my mother constantly, for hours.

Sometimes she would hide in the store, he would try to find her.

And even in the house, I could hear him yelling in the store.

Nobody would say a word to him, but he'd sit there and yell all evening sometimes.

And then he started fires in the house.

He would sit upon of Grayson stove and turn on the burner and then go sit on the couch.

And I was afraid he was going to burn the house down and kill all of us.

[wind rumbling] [fire cracking] So, I finally threw him out.

And he went to got himself a room in a motel somewhere.

From the motel, he went to the hospital.

And the hospital would not release him unless I took him back home again because he, they said he can't live on his own.

And, at the time, you just move and do what you have to and you don't stop to think about it much.

She said, you can't move in with anybody with five kids.

So, the idea is tough it out.

[scraper rattling] [lively music] [lively music] [lively music] His heart just stopped.

He would drink until he'd pass out and he'd be sleeping.

A lot of times he'd be sleeping on the couch in a sitting position.

And that's where I found him when the morning I came home and all the lights were on in the house and I wondered why, you know, kitchen, dining room, living room lights were all on and the TV was blaring loud and he was sitting on the couch when he passed away sitting there.

Honestly, I mean, it's way back since 1984 when he passed away.

And, I honestly, I can't say that I miss him.

Every now and then I remember him, but I can't say that I miss those last years.

I am so happy that she got to live life without him.

But, I also sometimes wonder what she would've been without him.

INTERVIEWER: Has it been easier to be a widow or harder?

Easier.

INTERVIEWER: Why?

Easier, because I was, I was used to doing the work and making sure I had enough money to take care of myself and the children.

I had a lot of offers afterwards not to be a widow, but I thought, no, that was not for me.

But they would start coming around the store when the store was open and stuff and everything and, and wanted a date and everything.

And I told 'em I didn't have time for anything like that and didn't want to.

And I says after the first one, I'm not, I would be afraid to pick another husband.

I learned to live by myself, and that's great.

[sanguine music] ♪ You only live twice ♪ ♪ Or so it seems ♪ ♪ One life for yourself ♪ ♪ And one for your dreams ♪ ♪ You drift through the years ♪ ♪ And life seems tame ♪ Another long obituary list.

[newspaper rustling] But it seems like there's so many in their 50s and 60s, which is way too early.

[suspenseful music] Oh my.

It would happen.

[suspenseful music] [suspenseful music] No, I'm okay.

INTERVIEWER: So you survived an episode with kidney stones?

The kidney stone was, I went through twice where they pulverized it and they did that twice and it broke it up, so.

INTERVIEWER: Has that been your only real issue, health wise, in the last few years?

That is the only thing INTERVIEWER: That's amazing.

I had, oh, let's see, back like 70 years ago, my tonsils got really bad and I had to have my tonsils out.

And then six months later, my appendix.

And then since, since then, nothing serious.

It's hard to realize just why everybody else gets sick and passes away before you do, even though they're younger.

I kept hoping it was me rather than my children that was sick.

I was older and I felt like it was my place to go first, not them.

And your father passed away and Teddy Ann passed away with COPD.

I prayed a lot, hoping that they would get better.

Mama's in a tough situation right now.

Dealing with the health of two of her children.

And you could see it in a way, she talks about, well don't tell Kathy this or don't tell Barney this, I don't want them to worry about me.

And my brother Barney was in the hospital about a month ago, and one of the things that was in the instructions for care was he may need assistance getting in and out of bed.

He looked terrible when he first got out of the hospital.

Could hardly walk or stand up or do anything, so, it was really major open heart surgery, not just stents.

[indistinct TV commentary] Barney, I'm not sure he realizes how dependent he is on her.

He's not independent.

He's dependent on my 102-year-old mother.

But in some ways, that gives her a purpose and the caretaker purpose.

When I was young, Grandma Pauly just, she'd work third shift and stop at Super Duper and bring donuts, I loved those days.

[somber music] My early memories of my mother, she was always there to help somebody.

I think that's when she felt the best about being a person.

I think her motivation has always just been started with raising her children, she's just determined to keep going.

It seemed like whatever came up or would've happened, she was there, she was there to help us.

It continues on even till today, PERSON 9: He shoos the other dogs away.

He's, goes and protects those little kittens that are under the, yeah, shed, so.

It's funny how a big animal will take care of a little tiny thing.

The helper gene is in all of us, the martyr.

We call it the martyr gene.

I didn't wanna take too much off.

[somber music] [birds chirping] Well, I need a haircut and I've wanted one, but since she's not feeling good, I don't wanna make her do it because it would be hard on her, so.

In January of this year, I was diagnosed with stage three metastatic breast cancer.

And, in February, I underwent a radical mastectomy and now I'm in chemo treatment.

I've been in for eight weeks now and I have three more months of chemo.

So I hate to see them being sick and not being able to do things, so.

This is Emmett, this is my mom, Mary, this is Aria, and Grandma Pauly.

INTERVIEWER: But that's your great-grandma.

My great-grandma.

Their great-great-grandma.

[Pauline speaking in foreign language] INTERVIEWER: What does it mean?

That's great-grandma.

Who made the card?

You?

Yes.

That's a nice card.

Thank you.

It's one- PAULINE: And three.

ARIANA: That's a one and that's a zero- PAULINE: Wow.

And I just- You did all that by yourself, huh?

INTERVIEWER: So how many kids do you want to have?

Zero.

INTERVIEWER: When you say zero, you mean five?

Zero.

I mean zero.

INTERVIEWER: Why?

'Cause zero.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

How many kids do you think your sister's gonna have?

Too many.

[somber music] How early do you wake up when you're 103?

Oh, I got up about 07:30.

Had a cup of coffee and a piece of toast and decided to make two pies so, I, it doesn't take too long.

[somber music] Actually, in Polish, they still called it pie.

[somber music] ♪ To you ♪ ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ ♪ Happy birthday dear, mom ♪ ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ [Pauline exhales sharply] PAULINE: Well.

[people chattering] [upbeat music] Well, I think she saw it at its best and saw it at its worst, and now we're kind of back in the middle where it's just things are pretty okay.

[upbeat music] ♪ Rockin' around the Christmas tree ♪ ♪ At the Christmas party hop ♪ ♪ Mistletoe hung where you can see ♪ ♪ Every couple tries to stop ♪ ♪ Rockin' around the Christmas tree ♪ Yes.

Give me like two pork chops.

Two pork chops.

And a Polish, a ring of Polish sausage with garlic.

A pound.

♪ Deck the halls with boughs of holly ♪ GERRY: What do you cook?

PAULINE: Almost anything.

GERRY: Yeah?

You still cook everything?

In fact, I want to order a duck for Christmas.

Okay.

And the blood with it.

Are you gonna make Czarnina?

Yep.

Are you?

Oh, yeah.

GERRY: Wow.

You're not gonna make the noodles.

Oh, yeah.

You still make the noodles?

Homemade noodles.

Oh my god.

I can count the people on one hand that still make their own noodles.

You didn't tell me how old you are.

I didn't?

No.

I was born in 1921.

Oh my gosh.

103.

Oh my gosh.

Unbelievable.

Thank you.

I live by myself now.

My son was living with me, but he just went into a nursing home last week.

Oh my gosh.

So, I'm there by myself now, so.

You're back to cooking for one, huh?

Yeah.

Yeah.

[wind whistling] Well, I'm doing much better than, obviously, the last time that I saw you, that was in May.

So I finally finished all my treatments.

And I'm considered in remission right now.

Barney is not here anymore.

No.

He was always like staggering on the stairs because his bedroom was up there.

He would use the cane and the railing and everything.

And lately, when he got older and he had trouble with the stairs, I made him sleep in my bed and I slept on the couch downstairs so that I could hear her if he needed anything during the night.

I slept nights on the couch and he slept in my bed.

She's been sleeping on her couch for well over a year now.

So.

Yep.

INTERVIEWER: Are you happy to have your bed back?

No.

Not really.

I'd rather have him back, but, I would rather he was back there instead of me, but, you don't always choose what you want, so, you have to go with what comes along.

If I could be like Grandma Pauly, I, I, it's hard to say.

I, I don't know, I couldn't imagine outliving so many people that I love.

No.

I'm an optimist.

I realize people do have to get sick and that people will die and everything.

I realize all that all happens to everybody or sometime or other.

[wind whistling] [footsteps rustling] The Soldiers' and Sailors' Homes was built initially for civil war veterans, and now, today, it is the home for World War II veterans, Korean War, Vietnam, any of the Iraqi insurrections that have happened.

And they might be missing limbs or they're sick and need special care.

And a lot of them would spend the rest of their lives here.

[machine hissing] [choir vocalizing] [somber music] [choir vocalizing] [people muttering] [choir vocalizing] [people muttering] [choir vocalizing] ♪ Be around ♪ [poignant music] PERSON 10: Guys pulled here at the count of three, 1, 2, 3.

Once again, we'll take our time to get him down.

♪ I hope it while I wait ♪ [people muttering] [wind whistling] [door clicks] [car engine rumbling] And look at this picture, this is me and my mother and father and all my brothers and sisters, there were 12 of us.

12?

How'd you like to have a dinner table like that?

That many people sitting around.

12 seats at one table.

Sitting around and eating.

PERSON 11: Look on these kids' faces when they realize- That's my mother and father and all 12 of us kids.

PERSON 11: It's amazing.

That was taken in 1940.

And look at this picture.

That's everybody with all of their kids.

Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and nephews, nieces, and that's one big family.

One big party, I'll tell you.

Where's me?

It's me.

Do you see me?

You are hiding behind somebody.

[kids giggling] This is a batch.

They went to Poland with.

I was only like between three and four years old.

My father wanted to stay and my mother said, no.

We're going back.

So we came back and my father got trapped in a coal mine again.

He says that's enough.

What little money they had, they bought the farm at Edinboro, a site unseen, 70 acres.

And he says, that's where we're going.

The first baby born in the city of Erie, that was Barney.

INTERVIEWER: That was- That was my son Barney.

He was the first baby born in the city of Erie.

Well.

[wind whistling] My parents died one at a time.

Then I lost brothers, and I lost the sisters, so, actually I had 11 brothers and sisters and I'm the last one left.

You know, you can't change it so you just have to live with it, so.

[crusher rumbling] [lawn mower rumbling] It is just a whole different year.

My cancer was able to be operated on and gotten rid of, and my mother didn't believe I was really doing well.

She just worries about everybody but herself.

She's a stubborn Polack.

I don't know.

Maybe.

She doesn't abandon anything.

I think the fact that she plants a garden, I love that, that she has tomatoes and peppers.

That means I'm gonna be around to harvest them.

That to me is just so hopeful.

Fortunately, I've had the chance to care for a number of people who are in their upper 90s or even over 100 in my career.

In 2001, my family and I, we had an opportunity to move to Okinawa, Japan.

Okinawa is renowned for having the highest density of centenarians in the world by far.

We would see, frequently, Japanese celebrating centenarian birthday parties.

They were all lean, they had very tight family circles, it was not unusual to see an Okinawa who was a hundred years old in their garden hoeing, pulling up vegetables.

Your grandmother reminds me of the people we saw in Okinawa.

[birds chirping] These are all Irish.

And they spread, they keep getting a little bit wider and wider every year.

And those are tiger lilies over there.

And I have new plants planted already.

Tomato plants, pepper plants.

Oops.

[Pauline chuckles] CAMERAPERSON: That's- PAULINE: Oh, you're okay.

CAMERAPERSON: And let's keep going.

I'll turn to the things I just crushed.

Okay.

I have tomato plants, pepper plants, and some cucumbers and radishes planted in here.

Just because you're getting older is no sign that you should quit doing things.

You just keep right on doing everything that you normally do.

And I think that's the whole secret.

[somber music] It is a lot of fun to get out there and make a path out to the street and do the sidewalk if I feel like it.

I can still do all of that.

In fact, in the summertime, I did some work out in the backyard and stuff and it invigorates me and makes me more able to do things.

Keep right on doing things, keep right on working and doing things.

Don't expect just because you're 60 or 70 that you shouldn't go out and mow the lawn or anything like that because you're older.

Keep right on doing things.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music] [Ariana panting] I am shocked that I'm already eight years old.

I still can't remember when I was five.

[upbeat music] My great-great-grandma Pauly, she turning 104.

INTERVIEWER: What will you do that day?

Dance, and celebrate her.

INTERVIEWER: Well, we better start buying the candles now, the store would run out.

Let's go get them.

♪ Bum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ [water sloshing] ♪ Bum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ ♪ Bum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ ♪ Bum, bum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ ♪ Mr.

Sandman ♪ ♪ Bring me a dream ♪ ♪ Bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ ♪ Make him the cutest that I've ever seen ♪ ♪ Bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ ♪ Give him two lips like roses and clover ♪ ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ ♪ Bum-bum-bum-Bum ♪ ♪ Then tell him that his lonesome nights are over ♪ ♪ Sandman ♪ ♪ I'm so alone ♪ ♪ Bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ ♪ Don't have nobody to call my own ♪ ♪ Bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ ♪ Please turn on your magic beam ♪ ♪ Mr.

Sandman, bring me a dream ♪ ♪ Bum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ ♪ Bum, bum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ ♪ Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ ♪ Bum, bum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ ♪ Mr.

Sandman, bring me a dream ♪ ♪ Make him the cutest that I've ever seen ♪ ♪ Give him the word that I'm not a rover ♪ ♪ Then tell him that his lonesome nights are over ♪ ♪ Sandman, I'm so alone ♪ ♪ Don't have nobody to call my own ♪ [uplifting music] [singing in foreign language]