This article appeared in Healthy Communities, a member magazine from Fallon Health.
Catherine Dowd’s big blue eyes and easy smile light up the room at Summit ElderCare. At 101-years-old, Catherine has the status of being one of approximately 40,000 centenarians—people in their 100s—in the United States, according to the Census Bureau. She has lived a full life of hard work, devotion to her family and service to her community.
These characteristics, in addition to others, are some of the similarities that studies like the New England Centenarian Study and the Okinawa Centenarian Study have found. Other similarities include healthy eating habits, exercise and a sense of humor.
Born in January 1906, Catherine says she never did anything special to reach this milestone of living. She believes, though, that eating three meals a day, getting a good night’s rest (at least eight hours), and not smoking was very helpful.
Catherine recalls working very hard from an early age. Her father passed away at 33, leaving her mother a widow with three girls to raise. To help her family, Catherine left school at age 14 to work full-time as a seamstress at the Royal Worcester Corset Company. For the 10 years that she worked there, she gave all of her earnings to her family.
That same determination and generous spirit drove Catherine to volunteer during World War II. “I had read that our soldiers were cold, and I wanted to help. So I volunteered through a Worcester organization. I probably knit hundreds of socks and scarves,” she says.
Catherine also attributes her long life to a positive attitude. “I never needed more than I had. I had what I needed and that made me happy,” Catherine says. Catherine and her husband, who predeceased her, used to enjoy dancing with friends at White City Dance Hall. Their two sons also brought joy to their lives.
Today, Catherine’s youngest son, Tom, cares for her, with the help of Summit ElderCare, Fallon Community Health Plan’s Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), which provides care for elders while allowing them to live at home for as long as medically and socially feasible.
“Catherine always finds the bright side of any situation,” says David Wilner, M.D., one of the physicians at Summit ElderCare who also has been Catherine’s doctor for many years. “She’s a wise and spunky woman!”