My Friend Frances, 100 Years Young

Frances Chartoff, who turned 100 this year, is not a superwoman, any more than many other women of her time who lived, worked, and raised a family through the Depression, World War II, the Civil Rights Era, and so much more. Frances may not be a superwoman, but she is a SuperAger.

If you haven’t yet heard the term, don’t worry. Frances hadn’t either. It’s a relatively new designation for people in their 70s and 80s (and beyond) who have the mental and/or physical capability of their decades-younger counterparts, according to Harvard Health.

I met Frances about 35 years ago while we were both working part time at the original New Haven Independent. (Yes, there was a paper version back in the last century.)

I’ve eaten many burgers, tuna sandwiches, and French fries with Frances over the years — first at Clark’s Dairy, then at the Hamden Townhouse Diner, then at the Bistro at Whitney Center.

My 18-year-old daughter, Lily, has grown up with Frances. We recently visited her in her apartment at Whitney Center in Hamden, where she’s lived since 2007. She is in hospice care now, and we knew this could be our last visit with our beloved friend.

"At This Point, You Relish Every Moment You Get"

Born Fannie Zelda Olenik on April 18, 1924 in New Haven, Frances grew up in a Jewish household with parents who emigrated from Russia. She eloped at an early age with a man from her neighborhood who was seven years older; that marriage was annulled. She later married Hal Chartoff in the 1940s and raised two daughters, Melanie and Norma, in West Haven. It was a difficult marriage, emblematic of the time, that lasted 39 years and ended in divorce.

After her marriage ended, Frances lived in apartments in New Haven and Hamden, finally moving to Whitney Center.

Frances has lost some teeth and a lot of weight, but she retains her memories, which she says is both a blessing and a curse. She remembers her friends’ birthdays and important details about daily life, but she also remembers painful memories, which haunt her.

Frances said she has learned to think of other things when unwelcome thoughts come. She reads, watches sitcoms and old movies, or calls a friend or one of her daughters. Her eldest daughter, Melanie, lives in Los Angeles with her husband Stan Friedman and visits two or three times a year. Her younger daughter, Norma, and son-in-law, Chip Scott, live in Brooklyn, and have been coordinating care, visiting regularly, and ordering supplies for Frances for decades.

Norma said her family never took vacations when she was young, but once Frances was divorced, she and Chip took Frances on many trips with them: Cape Cod, California, Canada, upstate New York, Indiana to visit Chip’s family, Florida, and even Italy.

“She finally was getting to see some of the world,” Norma said. She also said her mother was never afraid to approach strangers and talk to them.

“Her inquisitiveness was always very special, and she was open to talking to other people, no matter the situation.”

On a trip to Indiana around 1990, they stopped at an old rural bar. In the back room, there were a few men in great coats playing pool.

“My mom said she was going over to talk to them. I thought they looked sinister, and I kiddingly warned her that they probably had guns.” Norma turned around to order a drink. Then, she saw that her mother was in the back room.

“I heard her say ​‘Hey my daughter said that you probably have a gun.’”

“The man replied, ​‘Of course I do,’ as he pulled out a long-barreled revolver and laid it down on the pool table. My mom continued the conversation with him and found out his father was one of the federal officers who arrested Manuel Noriega.”

Frances also visited Melanie in Los Angeles a number of times when she could still travel.

“When she came to see me in the ​’80s, I brought her to the set of a TV show I was working on. Everyone loved her. The director even had a chair made for her,” Melanie said.

“Everyone pandered to her. She was kind of the pet mom on the set.”

“In recent years when I visit, my mother often says ​‘this may be the last time I see you.’” Melanie says, ruefully.

“It gets more poignant each time I see her,” she added. ​“Because one of these times it will be true. At this point, you relish every moment you get.”

"I Never Ate My Vegetables"

Frances is not exactly the type of person you’d expect to make it to 100 with her faculties intact. She’s lived through wartime, and has experienced sexual trauma and emotional abuse. As a result, she’s had anxiety her whole life. She was not particularly athletic, and she’s an introvert who has spent a lot of time alone.

She doesn’t exactly fit the SuperAger stereotype, which suggests that people who are married or very social, work out, and eat the rainbow live longer and healthier lives.

“She used to kid that on her tombstone it should read ​‘I never ate my vegetables,’” Norma said.

On the other hand, Frances never drank alcohol and has always been intellectually curious. She’s always read voraciously and said she never lived far from a library. And she keeps in touch with friends and family.

Aside from her daughters, she has maintained a few close friendships, especially with me and a friend she met decades ago while working at SCSU, Linda Adams. Though Frances has no biological grandchildren, she’s always treated our kids, Lily and Emily, as ​“franddaughters” (friend granddaughters).

As Frances aged, she continued to stay in motion, even if it was just a walk down the hall and back. At age 70, she began taking yoga classes at Erector Square.

Even at 100, she still does her best to stay active. ​“One thing is, I never stay in bed during the day,” Frances said. ​“My aide wakes me up and helps me clean up. Then I’m able to sit at the table and have breakfast.”

Though her mind has stayed unusually sharp, Frances does feel her age now, physically. In just the last decade or so, Frances’s small body — 4’8” now and only 69 pounds — has experienced a broken leg and hip, a broken nose, broken ribs and fingers, two strokes, an ischemic colon, stomach surgery, and she has lost most of her teeth. She has some replacement parts and wears a glove on her left hand, which is always cold. She uses hearing aids and walks with a walker.

“All the things I went through, I survived. I’m still here,” said Frances.

“She, amazingly, has recovered from things that would have ended many people’s lives,” Norma said. ​“Besides genetics, she has had a very strong support system in place, Chip and me! We all know a good support system is key.”

Norma said she thinks what has helped Frances’s brain most is music, reading, laughing, and hanging out with young people.

“She was never one to play games, but she used her brain in other ways, like naming all the state capitals, and she always remembered people’s names when she met them. She also loved practicing writing upside down and backwards and was an extremely fast typist. So, she did know how to practice and ​‘brain train.’”

“And, as you know, she continues to use the computer as best as she can,” Norma said. (I do; Frances still regularly emails with me.)

"If Ever I Should Leave You ..."

Frances has always loved the arts, and it’s no surprise that both of her daughters are artists — Melanie is an actress and Norma is a scene designer. Frances’s art is music.

“Singing was one of the best things in my life,” she said. ​“I should have been in music, but I didn’t have the opportunity.”

“I always loved singing. My school teachers invited me to join a group of young people to entertain in nursing homes. It was something I enjoyed doing more than anything. When I was 12 years old, I entered the annual talent show and sang a song with the accompaniment of a school pianist. I had gotten tips from my father who used to go to vaudeville shows.”

“When I was through, the audience wouldn’t stop applauding. They were so impressed with me,” she said. ​“I was musically well endowed.”

“My mother was a good singer,” said Melanie. ​“She has an exquisite singing voice, and also a great speaking voice. She did have ambitions to be a singer and perform more in public.”

“She sang around the house,” Melanie said. ​“We would go to the West Haven library, which had a wonderful selection of musical theater albums, like Fiorello and Camelot, which were some of my mom’s favorites. She especially loved the song ​‘If Ever I Would Leave You.’ She spent most of her time thinking about how she could leave my father.”

“My mother visited me at Summer Stock when I was 15. She ​‘ran away from home’ and worked in the costume shop,” Melanie said. ​“She was really happy; I think she wanted my life.”

“She wrote songs, too. The one that stood out most was ​‘Make Up Your Mind To Be Happy.’’ It was a real ​‘powder your face with sunshine upbeat kind of song.’ She was determined to be happy no matter what,” said Melanie.

A Woman's Work

In school, Frances was smart. Her teachers thought she should skip the second grade, she said.

“They had wanted me to skip the fourth grade too, but my mother wouldn’t let me. She thought I was too young because I hadn’t developed physically and I was petite.”

Later, she attended Commercial High School in New Haven, which later became Wilbur Cross.

“There was no money for college,” Frances said. ​“But you know, reading takes care of a lot of that, if you can’t afford school.”

She ended up taking a civil service exam that qualified her to get a job.

“I worked with a big automobile company,” she said. ​“World War II came and they couldn’t manufacture cars anymore. So, they had to let some of the people who worked there go. Then the whole place closed down.

“I began to realize there was a war when I was around 17. I didn’t take it seriously!” Frances said. ​“This was the time of Adolf Hitler. He started to get rid of the Jews in Europe and Russia, and I began to realize how serious it was.”

Frances paused. ​“I never spoke about it. I’ve kept it to myself.”

She continued, ​“My old office manager got me a new job in an office, where I did general office work. I took a bus to downtown New Haven. It was in a place called Majestic Theater, which doesn’t exist anymore. After the war, I got a position as an office manager.

“My husband had a very good job with GE. He wanted me to stay home to take care of the children and I did.”

After her divorce, Frances went back to work at Southern Connecticut State University, where she worked for many years as an Assistant Registrar.

At the time I met her, she was a receptionist and in charge of getting new advertising at the old Independent.

“Virginia and me,” she said, referring to Virginia Blaisdell, a New Haven photographer, one of many longtime New Haveners who worked at the original Independent, who’ve stayed on in New Haven, like Paul and Carole Bass, Bruce Shapiro, Margaret Spillane, Christopher Arnott, and Allen Lowe.

"Being An Atheist Is What I Really Am"

With the wisdom of a hundred years, I asked Frances what advice she had for young people.

“Well, I’ve got so much advice for young people,” she said, ​“but it would depend on what they wanted to know and then I might advise or make suggestions.” She won’t preach, she said.

“I’ve left religion behind,” she said. ​“I will not have religion at my funeral. When my Jewish relatives were alive, I would probably have had a rabbi. But now, I’m out of touch with them. I want to steer clear of religion.”

“In fact, I’m proud of the fact that I finally got to a point where I can say that being an atheist is what I really am,” she said. ​“At one time, I would never talk about my feelings on religion.”

“I pulled away from religion when I was around 30 or so,” Frances said. ​“I think of religion as harmful, where most people would never say that. I don’t believe in any God at all. But, who knows, really?” she said.

"There's Nothing Like Love"

In April, Lily and I sat with Frances to celebrate her milestone birthday.

As usual, she didn’t want a present. She doesn’t like clutter. In fact, she offered us date nut bread that Norma had ordered for her from the Vermont Country Store.

“I haven’t washed any dishes for a long time,” Frances said. ​“I dreamed last night that I was able to wash some dishes, which made me very happy, but that turned out to be a dream.”

All the reminiscing made Frances tired and a little sad. To cheer her up, I asked her to tell me about some of her favorite things.

She loves biographies and autobiographies of famous people. One of her favorites is All About Me! My Remarkable Life in Show Business by Mel Brooks.

Her favorite movies are ​“Wuthering Heights” and ​“Arsenic and Old Lace.” She also loves ​“Auntie Mame” and George Gershwin’s pop songs, like ​‘The Man I Love.’ She loves the color blue and a good BLT. And, of course, her friends and family.

Frances has home hospice care now.

Though she is tired and slowing down, she is not afraid of death; she’s made that clear for years.

We sat at the table with Frances as she slowly ate a chocolate chip cookie Lily had made for her, and Frances said we might not see her again. Lily and I started to cry.

“Why are you crying?” she asked. ​“Don’t be sad; this is natural.”

“Because I’ll miss you!” I told her.

Lily said she admired her.

“I never knew you admired me,” Frances told her. ​“What was I doing that was special?”

“You’re funny, and you’re smart and I grew up with you,” Lily said through her tears.

“Well, you really made me feel good saying those things,” Frances smiled. ​“There’s nothing like love to make you feel good about yourself.”

With the recent focus on the habits of SuperAgers, researchers are finding ways we can all help ourselves stay as healthy as possible, but, as we all know, there is no way to stop the progression of time.

There is a fountain of youth, though, according to deceased actress Sophia Loren. ​“It is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.”

By these standards, I’m happy to report that my dear old SuperAging friend Frances Chartoff will remain ageless.