Amsterdam Nursing Home Resident Hits 105 With Her Loving Family

Could you imagine playing Scrabble with your 105 year old mother? It’s unbelievable but true that her son who is in his 70s, still plays scrabble with her. Could you also imagine still creating beautiful art work at Sylvia’s age? Again, all true.

Amsterdam Nursing Home’s Sylvia Zucker celebrated her 105th birthday on Thursday, August 12th 2021 with her immediate close family that includes her son Carl and his wife, Jane, Sylvia’s grandson and his wife, her granddaughter and her boyfriend. The party would not be without Sylvia’s daughter Lisa where she was celebrating all the way from Norway via FaceTime.

Sylvia was so happy to see her family, humming music all the way from her room to the lobby where she reunited with her family for the first time in two years, since before the pandemic began. Thankfully and happily, Sylvia never got COVID-19 and what a survivor she is. On this sweltering summer day where the temperature hit the mid to upper 90s, Recreation Director Yovenie Thakoordeen smartly decided to have the intimate celebration in a cool section of the lobby of Amsterdam Nursing Home instead of the outside patio, a decision that probably saved the beautiful chocolate birthday cake.

Born on August 12, 1916, Sylvia grew up on East 97th Street and 1st Avenue in Manhattan and was an elementary school teacher the 4th and 5th grade in her professional life. Later she married Arthur, an accountant where they created a beautiful life together. Sadly Arthur hasn’t been with us for twenty years, passing away at age 89 and for almost fifteen years, Sylvia has been at Amsterdam Nursing Home.

In addition to being a solid school teacher, Sylvia is very talented. Her creativity was not only her appreciation of paintings and drawings, but she herself is an artist. Sylvia’s artistic ability has been passed down through the family where her kids and grandkids have shown the same artistic talents in the drawings they do. Both Carl and Lisa majored in art in college and Sylvia always taught her kids about all areas of art, including music and poetry and more recently, an animated drawing created by her grandson has been bought by a production company and destined to be made into a future movie.

Sylvia, who has some dementia, is still very much well aware of her surroundings, especially for the sight of photos of flowers and beautiful sunsets which she adores. It is these images that really grab her. Her family gave Sylvia a historical professional photo collage album, a gorgeous book that was assembled by Jane from hundreds of photographs at home.