Bettor's 100th Birthday Celebration A Winner In Toms River

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Most days of the week, if you stop into Favorites between noon and 3 p.m., you'll find Jimmy Cannistraro in his usual seat, making wagers on horse racing.

The bets are never large — a dollar is his typical amount. It's mostly a chance to get out of the house for a few hours and hang out with the friends he's made over the last several years while he's been going to the betting parlor on Route 37.

"He's a wonderful man," said Rhonda Snyder, the general manager of Favorites. "He's very much loved by everyone he meets."

So loved, in fact, that Snyder and Cannistraro's friends at Favorites surprised him recently with a cake to mark his 100th birthday.

"It's his day out," Jimmy's son, George, said recently. And it's a well-earned relaxation for a man who has lived a full life that included serving in World War II, helping to liberate the Dachau concentration camp, meeting Pope Pius XII, and a 72-year marriage.

George said his dad, who grew up in Harlem, was one of seven children. To help his family make ends meet, Jimmy took a job when he was 12 years old, sweeping the floors in a dress shop near where his family lived. At 18, Jimmy Cannistraro joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Great Depression-era program started by President Franklin D. Roosevelt that put people to work. Jimmy earned a dollar a day, doing a variety of work that included fighting forest fires in California, George said.

His father served in the U.S. Army and was stationed at Fort Dix for a time. Jimmy, who was a sergeant in the military police, and wound up in the second wave of landings at Normandy, George said. From there, Jimmy's unit was among those that liberated Dachau, the Nazi concentration camp.

George said his father doesn't talk much about the horrors he saw or his service in World War II. He does, however, tell the story of how he met Pope Pius XII, who was head of the Catholic Church from 1939 until his death in 1958.

George said Jimmy was on a 10-day pass along with some fellow service members, and they spent time in Paris and then headed to Rome. In Rome, they went to the Vatican and while there started talking with a Swiss guard. When the Swiss guard learned they had helped liberate Dachau, he arranged for Jimmy and his group to have a private audience with the pope, who blessed Jimmy and the others.

"In the early '50s he got cancer," George said of his father. There weren't many options but a treatment that was experimental. But when Jimmy went back to the doctors, the cancer was gone.

"He'll tell you it was the blessing of the pope that cured him," George said.

Jimmy's years after his World War II service were quieter. He was a member of the Teamsters and he and his wife, Sophie Cannistraro, raised George, living in the Bronx before George and Sophie retired to Florida. He like to go to the dog track and hang out, George said, and even met Don Zimmer of the New York Yankees once. They moved north in 2009, to be closer so George could help them. Sophie died a year ago, George said.

George wasn't sure how his dad would react, but he said Jimmy "still likes going to see his gang" at Favorites. He bets on his favorite jockeys who are riding, mostly at the New York tracks. Sometimes they go to IHop for breakfast. Other times they go Friendly's. "He gets his Reuben sandwich and strawberry ice cream."

"It's his day out," George said. "He really enjoys it."

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