East Haven Woman, 102, Survives Two Pandemics

EAST HAVEN, CT — Born more than a century ago in Fair Haven, Marie Streeto, just days shy of her 103rd birthday, was an infant in 1918 when both her parents contracted influenza, two of the 500 million infected globally with the Spanish flu.

Baby Marie would have to go live with her aunt for months to stay safe as her mother and father battled the illness. They both survived. As did Marie.

Now she finds herself living through a second pandemic.

But she doesn’t worry. She’s not a worrier, she said. And, since getting her first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine last week, she feels safe from the disease. Not that she was overly concerned to begin with, she said.

“I wasn’t afraid,” Streeto said from her tidy and comfortable living room in the East Farms elderly housing complex. “I just take every day ...it’s another day to live. I pray. If I’m OK, I’m fine. It’s that attitude. That’s how I live.”

Streeto was one of the people met by East Haven assistant director of administration Michelle Benivegna, who took vaccine outreach on the road when she went to visit elderly housing in town to ensure seniors, who often do not use computers, much less email, were able to sign up for the vaccine.

Benivegna said that Mayor Joseph A. Carfora is committed to getting everyone in East Haven vaccinated.

Carfora met with Streeto at the vaccine clinic last week.

“It was fine,” Streeto said of getting the vaccine. She gets the second dose on her birthday, March 20, the day she turns 103. “I had to have it, I felt it necessary. I want to keep living. You do what you should do.”

“If I’m OK today, that’s good. There’s tomorrow ... but I live for today.”

Streeto was born as World War I was ending. She lived through the pandemic of 1918, the Great Depression, WWII and “everything since.”

How has she managed, she was asked.

“If I’m OK today, that’s good. There’s tomorrow ... but I live for today.”

Today being a sunny Thursday in East Haven where Streeto, from her window, can watch birds in the trees.

With bright, clear eyes, and luminescent skin that looks like that of a much younger person - she credits “good genes” - Streeto is very much with it. She cooks for herself — her sauce is made from scratch and a family favorite — she does most of the cleaning in her apartment, visits neighbors and friends in her building and, until the coronavirus pandemic hit, regularly went to Mass. Streeto is a devout Catholic. Her rosary beads rest on a table near her recliner, a statue of Mary sits atop the fridge.

Brought up in Fair Haven, near Chatham Square, they were an Italian family in a predominantly Irish Catholic neighborhood. From an early age, she attended Mass daily and went to the St. Francis School — she's the oldest living alumni of the parochial school. Streeto was very involved in the church and has been her whole life, she said. She was still president of a church ladies guild at age 80.

Streeto had two sons, Michael, 74, and Joseph, 79. Her husband, who died more than 20 years ago, fought in World War II. While he was overseas, she raised her young sons in East Haven, worked for years at a bank, ran polio fundraising drives, dabbled in politics and mostly, enjoyed the familial relationship she had with friends and neighbors in East Haven.

“Oh, things were so different then. Your neighbors were close, family. Now, who knows their neighbor,” she asked rhetorically.

When asked to what she attributes her advanced age and overall good health, save for a touch of arthritis, she shrugs.

“Nothing special. Just living day to day and being with family. We were always together. We were very family oriented,” she said. “My mother and father were always together. And you know, you just do what you have to do. As a family. That’s all.”

Though Streeto does enjoy drinking wine.

“Ordinary living. Good friends, close-knit family, faith, good food and red wine,” she said. “That's it.”

Editor's note: Through an editing error, Mrs. Streeto's last name was misspelled in a previous version of this story. Many apologies.