By Dolores Sauca Lorusso

Longtime Hull resident Florence Herman says she is excited to be turning 100 years old just before the New Year.

Her great-niece, Brooke Shoostine, invited Hull residents to help celebrate the milestone by singing “Happy Birthday” on Saturday, Dec. 30 at 10:30 a.m. outside her great-aunt’s house at 6 Warren St.

Shoostine encouraged people to wear costumes, hold up celebratory signs, and bring instruments to play a song or two.

The Herman family began summering in Hull 64 years ago, and Florence has been living in Hull full-time in that home with her youngest daughter for 13 years. Herman lived in Florida for 30 years, but returned to Hull because “everyone was dying.”

The downside of living to be 100 is you lose a lot of people along the way. Herman’s sister Dolly, died at 94 this past spring, and that was “hardest” for her.

“[It’s] not easy to live and have people dying…a lot of things happen in life and you have to learn to deal with them,” she said.

One upside of living a long life, Herman said, is “the older you get, the more you experience things and the smarter you get.”

Herman survived two episodes of cancer and said she has been “very fortunate in life…I had cancer two times and licked it. I am a fighter. I am a survivor.”

She also has seen the world change over the years, including many inventions that are now common, such as television, movies with sound, electric traffic signals, frozen food, copy machines, and penicillin. She has seen the telephone go from rotary, to push button, to mobile. Typewriters changed to computers, and music went from being played on records to 8-track tapes to cassettes to CDs, and now is streamed.

She attributes a large part of her survival to her positive attitude.

“I had to be positive living through radiation and chemo,” she said, adding that her mother lived to be 94 years old, so she has “good genes.”

She also said she played bridge her whole life, which “makes you have to think and remember.” A self-described people person, she also played bridge at the senior center for many years and enjoyed playing with a variety of people.

During her lifetime, Herman traveled often and likes “to see it all.” She said her favorite place is Italy. “I have been to Italy two times. I like the food, the people,” she said.

This centenarian has no plans of stopping as she turns 100.

“Every day is special… I am not ready to go,” said Herman. “I am lucky when I get sick, I bounce back like a bouncy ball.”

Her youngest daughter said, “she always used to tell me and my sister to ‘never give in or give up,’ and she lived that.”

The lifelong lover of “cooking and eating” good food said her biggest accomplishment was losing weight, going from a size 14 to a size 10. Her favorite foods are Chinese and corned beef sandwiches.

“Once I made up my mind, I just did it,” said Herman of her weight loss. “I also quit smoking in my 40s.”

She was married to her first husband, Raymond Herman, at the age of 20.

“The first thing we did when we bought this house in Hull is put up a flag, and we still put one up in remembrance of him,” she said.

Raymond died in 1988 and she met “another gem of a man,” David Vanderhorst. “I was very fortunate to have two wonderful men in my life,” Herman said.

Herman said she has two daughters, two granddaughters, and one great-granddaughter.

“I enjoyed doing a lot in life…I light my own fire,” said Herman, who looks back on her years and finds them to be “very nice; a lot of good memories.”

Herman’s advice to younger people is three-fold: “Don’t smoke; if you drive, do so carefully; and don’t let anyone walk all over you.”

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