Well-wishers who helped Dorothy Carroll, center, celebrate her 103rd birthday on Tuesday at The Meadows Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in the Back Mountain include, from left: Joe Ostroski, Carol Carroll, Don and Alice Kocher, Virginia Crossin and Andrew Cappucci.
Dorothy Carroll turns 103
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Dorothy Carroll, a retired art supervisor for the Dallas School District, celebrated her 103rd birthday on Tuesday with balloons and flowers, cake and ice cream, plenty of polka music and a party at the Meadows Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Dallas.
Her long-time friend Andrew Cappucci pointed out that while Dorothy couldn’t hear a reporter’s questions very well, he had already asked her the secret to a long and happy life.
“She said, ‘Eat healthy, and always have seconds on dessert,” Cappucci relayed.
It seemed that Dorothy was about to take her own advice on her birthday.
As her stepdaughter-in-law, Carol Carroll, explained, they’d just gone out to dinner at Leggio’s Restaurant, which is across the street from the Meadows campus, where Dorothy had enjoyed penne pasta Alfredo with crab meat, chicken pastina soup, garlic knots and chocolate fudge cake.
Then when she arrived in a community room at the Meadows, staff members were busy cutting a sheet cake and serving it with ice cream, while musician Ron Figel entertained about 50 residents and visitors with The Pennsylvania Polka, the Green Grass Polka, some holiday tunes and a Polish song whose title translates to “Have A Nice Day.”
Guests from the community included Virginia Crossin, who has been friends with Dorothy’s daughter, Deborah, since the two met at Wilkes University, then Wilkes College in the late 1970s, and Alice Kocher, who had been an art student of Dorothy’s years earlier.
“She was a wonderful teacher,” Alice Kocher said.
Born Dec. 19, 1920 in Kingston, Dorothy Carroll grew up in the Heights section of Wilkes-Barre, graduated from GAR High School and studied further at Penn State University. She earned a master’s degree from New York University and worked for the Dallas School District for many years. Her favorite years, as she told Andrew Cappucci, were 1970 through 1975, when she had the opportunity to travel to Spain and Italy and to sail on the Queen Mary.
“She said her favorite thing was spending time with family and friends,” Cappucci said.
Dorothy Carroll has outlived two husbands, Jack Withey and William Carroll. Her daughter, Deborah Withey, formerly worked as an artist for the Times Leader and the Detroit Free Press and now works as an artist and art teacher in Wales.
