Salute to a centenarian: A resilient Helen Gabay brings joy, laughter to a long life

Helen Gabay has a great sense of humor. 

When asked what she wanted for her 100th birthday, the budding centenarian responded, “A rich man with a weak heart.” It’s just one quality those who know Helen best attribute her longevity to – the ability to laugh goes a long way when you’ve had your share of hardship.

“My mom is a very strong woman,” Janine Gabay, who at 65 is Helen’s youngest child, told the Journal. “She doesn't know what she is not supposed to be able to do. She just rises to the occasion.” 

Born in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 1924, Helen lived in Brooklyn until 1952, when she moved to Guilderland, New York, just west of Albany, with her husband. Twenty years later, when the two divorced, Helen moved to Kings Park to be closer to family, in particular her brother in East Northport. She lived there for 37 years, until a bad fall down her basement stairs left her with numerous broken bones, from her ankles to her ribs. She became a resident at Atria Senior Living in East Northport in 2009.

This past June 8, friends, family and staff at the assisted living facility celebrated Helen’s 100th birthday. A recently sustained tibia fracture restricted Helen’s movement but not her style: she wore a royal purple floor-length two-piece skirt and top with matching jacket (and earrings), a silver articulated bracelet mirroring the color of her freshly blown hair. She looked jubilant. 

“She doesn't understand the concept of obstacles”
When she was just six years old, Helen was diagnosed with polio and sent to a hospital for the “ruptured and crippled” for treatment, Janine said. The year prior, a young Helen had been bedridden and after her diagnosis dealt with “drop foot,” which often led to falls when walking, and a severely weakened right hand. 

Two years later, Helen’s mother Jeanneatte died from a toxic goiter, leaving Helen and her younger brother Jerome to be raised mostly by their sister, Blanche. Janine wonders how her mom learned to walk again, how she figured out to have two different size shoes with lifts in the heels, without her own mother around. Those childhood challenges, Janine said, were just the beginning of a lifelong resilience Helen shows to this day. 

“She doesn't understand the concept of obstacles,” Janine said. 

Helen grew up during the Great Depression, her teenage years taking place during World War II. She wrote 20-plus letters a week to soldiers, Janine said, while helping support her father and enduring the unpleasantries of a rather wicked stepmother.  

“She could have, should have had a different life,” Janine said. But the circumstances of the times and a new family dynamic dictated so much, including going to vocational school instead of continuing in academia (despite a stellar academic record). “Who knows what she could have or would have done,” Janine said. 

Helen had four children. Her firstborn, Gary, died of a heart defect at just three months old. She then had Jonathan, David and Janine. In addition to raising her kids, Helen worked in commodities before becoming an administrative assistant at Stony Brook University Hospital.  

Helen has more titanium in her body than the Transformers, Janine joked, beat Covid-19 during lockdown in March 2020, when there were no vaccines or antiviral medications, is legally blind and just last month, slipped down from her wheelchair and sustained that tibia fracture. Yet she keeps going. 

It’s a quality Janine nurtures, even if she has to occasionally remind her mom of it. When Helen took a liking to stained glass later on in life, she hesitated to follow through because she thought the condition of her hand wouldn’t allow her to cut the glass. 

“Mom, if quadriplegics can paint with paint brushes in their mouths, you can cut stained glass,” Janine said; she found Helen a glass cutter with a special grip handle that enabled Helen to make everything from lamps to stepping stones. “Now everyone who knows her has a stained glass piece,” Janine said, laughing. 

Though she couldn’t touch her right thumb to her pointer finger, Helen still learned to knit, sew, crochet and even wallpaper, Janine said. 

A new home
Janine set up a time for Helen to get interviewed at the Atria in East Northport. She’s cognizant of her mom’s schedule, which aides are more stimulating to be around, and admits Helen has good days when she’s alert and less good days when she’s sleepy – but says she can fill in the blanks if need be. “I’m her backup hard drive,” Janine said.

It’s a beautiful day, the air crisp, the sun shining when Janine meets with the Journal for her mom’s interview. She is patient and loving with Helen, speaking in a consistently upbeat tone Helen responds well to; Janine knows the prompts that will get her mom talking, and makes the connections that jump-start Helen into reminiscing about different stages of her life. She also shares her mom’s sense of humor. 

Doreen Freda, a private duty aide who has been working with the Gabays for the past two years, gently combs Helen’s hair with her fingers from the back of Helen’s wheelchair, which Doreen easily navigates into the elevator to the Atria’s lower level, then out into the courtyard. We pass one of Helen’s handmade stained glass stepping stones on our way to sit down and chat. 

“What made you most happy in the past?” Janine asks, repeating a question that came up during the interview. 

“When you were born,” Helen responds.
“Should I tell Jonnie and David that?” Janine asks.
“No,” Helen said. 

“And what are you most happy for today?” Janine asks, following up.

“My children,” Helen says without hesitation. The best decade of her life was her thirties, she said, when her time as a mom was in full swing. 

After her divorce, Helen never remarried, though she dated and had serious relationships. She liked her independence and didn’t want to revert back to the traditional “wife” roles of that generation, despite society’s expectations, Janine said.  

“And at the time, that was almost unheard of,” Doreen, who joined us in the courtyard, said. “For a regular working-class family to have a woman that was confident and strong enough to not have society enforce those unwritten rules… She didn’t care. She should be the template of a strong, single mom.” 

So Helen raised her children, then traveled – to Israel, France, Egypt, Japan – eventually giving Janine the travel bug herself. “Forget designer clothes and cars and jewelry,” Janine said. “Just save your money for travel and memories and not things.” Together, Helen and her family went to Mexico and Costa del Sol in the south of Spain, where they took a hydrofoil to Tangiers in northern Africa. 

In addition to her stained glass work, Helen’s favorite hobbies included gardening and dancing, in particular the fox trot, Janine said. “And the waltz and the cha-cha,” Helen chimed in.   

As she grew older and her eyesight worsened, Helen turned to listening to nature series and documentaries. 

“She’s a fact person,” Janine said. Helen demonstrated her mental acuity during the interview, quickly answering math questions (with her eyes closed – she wasn’t sleeping, just resting, she said) and naming the capitals of U.S. states when Janine asked. 

“Her mind is sharp,” Janine said. 

When asked what she would do with a million dollars, Helen said, simply, “Spend it.” 

So what does Helen think got her to 100 years old? “I stayed away from liquor,” Helen said. She does admit to one vice: her cigarettes – she had her first at 15 and, when she could no longer drive, would get packs of True Blue delivered to her Kings Park home until she was in her mid-eighties, finally quitting when the price went up 70 cents a pack, Janine said. 

From the outside, the keys to Helen’s longevity seem straightforward. She endured a lot but never gave up. She recognized and realized a sense of self apart from the roles she could have remained in earlier on in life. She loves her kids, has great hobbies and makes sure to laugh. She has a butterscotch candy or a Hershey’s Kiss when she wants one. 

To this day, Helen puts family first, practices kindness (she doesn’t have a chip on her shoulder, Janine said) and delivers an amusing array of one-liners often, most about her love life. 

Do you remember your boyfriend’s name?” Janine asked as our interview was ending.
“I only have one?” Helen responded. 

The freshly minted 100-year-old was in her element on her birthday, with her three children and three grandchildren, friends and staff at the Atria celebrating with her. What she wished for most, in addition to that rich man with a weak heart, she said, was her next birthday.