Nora Derhammer celebrates her 102nd birthday Thursday with a drive-by party from family, firetrucks and ambulances outside The Meadows nursing home in Dallas Township.
                                 Jerry Lynott | Times Leader

Nora Derhammer celebrates her 102nd birthday Thursday with a drive-by party from family, firetrucks and ambulances outside The Meadows nursing home in Dallas Township.

Jerry Lynott | Times Leader

Born in Ireland, Nora Derhammer turned 102

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DALLAS TWP. — It’s a long way from Tipperary to where Nora Derhammer celebrated her 102nd birthday.

With a paper tiara atop her head and pink “Birthday Princess” sash draped diagonally across her green sweater, Derhammer watched from her wheelchair at the main entrance of The Meadows nursing home as a drive-by party organized by her family passed in front of her.

Shouts of “Love you,” and “Hi grandma,” came from the cars and trucks at the head of the line as sirens from firetrucks and ambulances bringing up the rear wailed.

Derhammer waved as the convoy of vehicles rolled by and kept a safe distance from her well wishers during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Oh, she’s a piece of work,” her daughter Patty Doble said afterward.

“She’s stubborn. She’s 102 of course, you know that. She’s from Ireland, you know that,” Doble, of Harding, said.

Derhammer was serving in the British Army during World War II when she met her late husband Charles, an American GI.

“They met over in Ireland during the war,” Doble said of her parents. “My brother was actually born over there. She came over on the boat. That’s why she hates water now.”

The couple lived in Noxen and had five children. Derhammer is the matriarch of an expansive clan spanning generations of grandchildren, great grandchildren and great greatgrandchildren. Aside from arthritis, Derhammer is in good health for someone her age, family members said.

“Another thing she likes to do is sing,” Doble said.

But it was her family and nursing home workers who sang “Happy Birthday” to her Thursday.

“I wonder if there’s anybody here a hundred and two,” Derhammer mused.

When asked if there was anything special she would like to do, Derhammer replied, “Go back about 50 years.”

Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLJerryLynott.