Birthday girl feels great celebrating 100 years with family, friends
A huge smile graced Mary Hajek Nugent's face with all the special attention she was receiving Saturday. That's the day she turned 100.
“I feel like Tony the Tiger. I’m feeling great!,” she exclaimed as she put her arms up in the air mimicking the tiger mascot for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes.
Her granddaughter, Carlina Rika, put together a big celebration that included a huge bouquet of 100 roses.
“She loves roses,” said Rika, adding that her grandmother loves flowers and positive, happy stuff.
“Aren’t they beautiful? I love them,” Nugent said.
The family took Nugent outside to see the enormous sign in the front yard wishing her a happy 100th birthday. On the sign were things she loved like roses, her church, and horses. She used to love riding horses, Rika said. She waved for the cameras pointed at her and posed for pictures with family members. Family and friends traveled from all over to celebrate Nugent's milestone birthday.
The roses sat on a table next to a huge assortment of balloons that Rika brought back from Texas, where her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Louis Robert Nugent, live. Rika and her husband, Sokol Rika, traveled to San Angelo, Texas, to bring them back to Alexandria for the celebration, arriving at 2 a.m. Saturday morning.
“They haven’t been here since pre-COVID so it’s a special moment for them," Rika said.
Nugent and her late husband, Robert Malcolm Nugent, had three children: Louis Robert Nugent, William David Nugent and Janie Ann Fitzsimmons, who is Rika’s mother. Nugent has one great-grandson, Christian Chester Gibbs, Rika said.
Nugent was born on Oct. 7, 1923. She is of Czech heritage, part of the first generation of her family born in the United States, and grew up in the Czech community in Libuse. She had one brother, the late Fred Hajek. Nugent attended Barron Grammer School and walked 12 miles one way just to get there. She is a Buckeye High School graduate and a U.S. Navy veteran who served for two years during World War II in Pensacola, Fla. She trained in New York when she enlisted. Her job was to work on parachutes.
After the war ended, she and her Navy squadron were sent to march in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.
“I asked her why she quit the Navy and she said, ‘The war ended,’” Rika said, laughing.
“They didn’t want us anymore,” Nugent said. “We were happy there, though. They treated us good.”
After the military, she worked with the Veterans Administration helping veterans find employment.
The last big birthday celebration for Nugent was when she turned 90, Rika said. And she told her grandmother that she had to wait until she turned 100 to have another big party. It was a milestone celebration that she enjoyed very much.
This article originally appeared on Alexandria Town Talk: Birthday girl feels great turning 100 years old in Alexandria
