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“They come to me … and they tell me ‘Wait until you’re my age.’ I ask them how old they are and they say 75 or 80. I tell them ‘Hey, I’m 92.’ ”

April 18, 2010

A work force wonder

Angeline Vergnetti got a job at age 54. She is still going strong at age 92.

By Bill O'Boyle boboyle@timesleader.com
Times Leader Staff Writer
Bill O'Boyle on Facebook   |   @TLBillOboyle on Twitter

She arrives at her job inside the Wilkes-Barre%2FScranton+International+Airport%22>Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport terminal in Pittston Township at 4 a.m. every day. Her work week was recently cut back to six days from seven and that upset her. Because she’s been doing this for 38 years.

“I like it here,” said 92-year-old Angeline Vergnetti. “I like talking to people and helping them.”

When Vergnetti’s husband, Tony, died in 1967 at the age of 49, Angeline moped around the house, never going anywhere, said her son Leo Vergnetti. After five years of that, Leo said it was time to put his mom to work. He told her he was “being robbed” by employees at his airport coffee shop and he needed someone he could trust.

Almost four decades later, since she started working at the age of 54, Angeline has become a fixture at Wings Restaurant, having met thousands of people, including presidents and celebrities.

“Ju Ju,” as she is fondly called, will be 93 in November and there are no signs of her slowing down. She doesn’t like – you can say she resents – getting a day off.

“They gave me Easter off; I was furious,” she said. “I used to work until 2 p.m. or 3 p.m., but they cut my hours. I’m supposed to leave at 11 a.m., but I usually stick around later,” she said.

Vergnetti never worked outside the home until her son hired her at the coffee shop. “I was a housewife,” she said.

Her marriage produced three children and she has 16 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.

“And there are two more on the way,” she said with a smile. “And you wonder why I work?”

Angeline was the oldest of 14 children of Leo and Theresa DeAngelo of Scranton. She said many of her customers don’t realize how old she is.

“They come to me and complain about this or that and they tell me ‘Wait until you’re my age.’ I ask them how old they are and they say 75 or 80. I tell them ‘Hey, I’m 92.’ ”

Vergnetti enjoys asking travelers where they are going. She said she tries to console those who have to fly off to a loved one’s funeral. “I just like to make conversation,” she said.

Vergnetti has seen the airport change over the years and has watched the world change with it. She said people travel differently these days; they no longer dress up for plane rides.

“Now they arrive in T-shirts, dirty pants and flip-flops,” she said. “I used to work for a quarter a day and I’d have to give my mother that quarter to help the family. Now if they drop a quarter, they don’t even pick it up. I still pack pennies at home.”

She was 16 when she had to quit school six months short of graduation to get a job and help her family. She said that back then people did what they had to do to make ends meet.

“I graduated high school when I was 80,” she said. “I thought about college, but I already had this job.”

And where would she be without her job?

“I’d be in the graveyard,” she said.

Vergnetti still finds time to clean her house, do laundry and cook. Her son said he feels blessed to have his mother still with him every day. “I feel safe,” he said. “To know she is here and she’s OK and doing so well – it’s terrific.”

Vergnetti doesn’t drive, so for 38 years she has had to find rides to and from work. There have been few incidents, although once a young man, whom Leo described as “scruffy looking,” agreed to take Angeline home. The car broke down on Interstate 81 – “the wheels fell off the car,” Angeline said – so she gathered her bags filled with the restaurant’s laundry and started walking.

“The kid started chasing after her because I guess he felt responsible,” Leo said. “But my mom just started running down I-81 with the kid running after her.”

In her job at the airport, Angeline has met a lot of famous people over the years.

Her favorites have included Joe Paterno, Lillian Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani, Arlen Specter, Martha Raye, Milton Berle, Rodney Dangerfield, Jack Palance, Henny Youngman, Bo Diddley.

“Tony Orlando sang to me,” she said. “And I saw Gerald Ford come out of the men’s room and pull up his zipper.”

“Georgie Jessel pinched her butt,” Leo said, referring to the late vaudevillian and comedic movie star from the 1930s and ’40s. Leo said Jessel was at the airport very early one day and asked to go see his mother.

“He came in and closed the door behind him and came after me,” Angeline said. “I ran and he chased me; I wouldn’t go back in the restaurant.”

Wenche Belton has worked with Angeline for three years.

“She’s a hot ticket,” Belton said. “She’s so funny. I hope I can be like her.”

So what’s her secret?

“I used to eat hot dogs every day for years,” she said.

The kidding doesn’t stop around her. Leo’s son Tony said, “Tell him about the day you met George Washington.”

Angeline laughed. Leo laughed.

“He was nice looking in his uniform,” Angeline said.

And everybody laughed.

Bill O’Boyle, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 829-7218.

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