LANCASTER, N.Y. (WKBW) — On Sunday, Agena Puricelli turned 100 years old! Her family and friends celebrated her with a party in Lancaster that had food, games, raffle prizes and a century of photos.
"It's fantastic," said Puricelli. "I never expected anything like this."
I told her that she shares her century celebration with Buffalo Bills Hall of Fame Head Coach Marv Levy, to which she responded: "He's a lucky son of a gun!...I'm lucky too!"
"It's amazing, it's amazing," said Dominic Puricelli, Agena's son.
WATCH: 'I'm lucky': Buffalo's 'Rosie the Riveter' turns 100
Puricelli was born to Italian immigrant parents on August 3, 1925. At that time, Mount Rushmore was still being planned out, the average annual salary was $1,500, and here's what you would've paid for groceries:
- Loaf of bread: $0.09
- Gallon of milk: $0.56
- Dozen eggs: $0.47
Puricelli remembers buying bologna for five cents a pound and going to Buffalo's Broadway Market with her mom to buy chickens. They rode the trolley for less than a nickel.
"What have you enjoyed the most about living in Buffalo?" I asked.
"I used to love to go skating at Scott's Roller Rink," said Puricelli, who grew up on Fillmore Avenue. "I lived there Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday."
When she wasn't skating, she was out dancing at the Dellwood Ballroom, which was Buffalo's popular dance hall on Main and West Utica from the 1930s to the 1970s.
"We danced our legs off," said Puricelli. "Jitterbug, oh my God...Those were the good old days."
When Agena wasn't in her skates or dancing shoes, she was wearing steel-toe boots assembling radiators or military planes for Bell Aircraft.
"She was the original Rosie the Riveter," said Dominic Puricelli.
He explained that because his mother was four feet eleven inches, her small stature would be used strategically on the assembly line.
"They put her in the wheel well of a P-38," explained Dominic Puricelli. "She was the only one that could fit in a wheel well to run the fuel line."
Below is a photo of women working on the assembly line, similar to Puricelli, during WWII.
When she was a kid, she hauled ice blocks for her father around Buffalo. She later held jobs at Harrison Radiator, General Electric and Westinghouse.
"I was a good worker. I worked hard," said Purcicelli.
So what has she learned over the past century of life?
"You can't take life real serious, because so many things go wrong, and you can't take it serious," explained Purcicelli. "If you live with it, you die fast, because it tears you apart. So I just let a lot slide over my shoulder."
These days, the only thing hanging over her shoulder is a 100th birthday sash.
