For Ellen Dunne, of Hanover, this St. Patrick's Day will top them all. Here's why

HANOVER − She's Irish through and through, and so it seems fitting that her birthday falls on St. Patrick's Day.

Most years, however, it was just another day.

This year will be different. On March 17, Ellen Dunne will turn 100.

For the first 19 years of her life, nothing special was done on her birthday.

"In Ireland, St. Patrick's Day was a holy day and everyone went to church," Dunne said.

When she came to America at age 24, married and settled in Dorchester, she was so busy raising nine children that the day just went by.

Although she won't be going back to Ireland this year like she did when she turned 90, her large South Shore family will be having a party to celebrate a woman "who is very, very well-loved."

In an interview at her apartment at Cushing Residences for seniors, Dunne had a piece of advice for pleasing a 100-year-old woman.

"I don't object to people complimenting me," she said. "I like it. I think every woman does."

'I love to walk. I love music. And I love to dance.'

She also gave two reasons why she has lived this long.

"I'm very social," she said. "I think lack of sociability is a killer."

She has seen other seniors become isolated and lonely and decline.

And she has learned that "worry is a useless emotion. I try not to worry about what I can't control."

When life's cruelest blows have come along − the worst being the deaths of two of her eight sons and three grandchildren, one just 8 − she said, "I seem to go into neutral and deal with it. I can do what I have to do and weeks later it hits me."

Dunne has been a walker most of her life, as much as 5 miles a day in her 70s and early 80s, and she practiced yoga into her 90s.

She has seven living children; 21 grandchildren; 15 great-grandchildren with one more on the way; and eight step-grandchildren.

Ellen Gannon was born in 1924 to Patrick and Mary Gannon in Glenamaddy, a rural village in County Galway. They were "very, very poor" but had a small farm and plenty of food.

Her mother was always looking out for others, and on Sundays, "she would send us out to bring potatoes and cabbages" to neighbors she knew had nothing to eat.

"Being poor didn't bother me because everyone was in the same boat," Dunne said.

Her father, who lived to age 91, worked hard on the farm; they all helped out. She was a sturdy child, the fifth of 10 children, and did all the chores her brothers did. Her father also built houses, and her sister, who is 92, still lives in the family home he built.

She walked to a one-room schoolhouse, sometimes without shoes because she had none, and at 19, she took the chance to go to Northampton, England, to be trained for work as a nurse's aide in St. Andrews mental hospital. It was 1943, during World War II. She stayed four years.

They were 'very poor' (but didn't know it) and happy

"I liked the work and I profited from it," she said. She was learning skills and being paid.

In 1948, when she was 24, her father's sister who lived in Cambridge sponsored her to come to Boston, as her sisters had. She found a job as an aide at Boston State Hospital.

There she met John Dunne, five years younger, a handsome Irish lad who worked on the hospital transportation crew. His family lived in Fields Corner in Dorchester. Two years later, in 1950, they were married, when she was 26 and he was 21.

Their children − eight boys and one girl − quickly followed, two of them just 10 months apart. At one point she had four children 3 years old and younger to care for at home.

"I enjoyed it. I loved my children," she said.

With so much commotion under one roof, she was strict and kept order. When her sons told her, "The other children don't have to do this," she'd reply, "Well, I'm not their mother."

John Dunne became a Boston police officer, stayed for 23 years, and worked extra shifts to support his family. They bought the six-bedroom Victorian house where his parents had lived on Paisley Park in Dorchester. Their children all attended Catholic schools in Boston. In the 1970s, when busing came to Boston, they moved to Hanover.

"I always had it in my mind that my children would do a lot better than I did," Ellen Dunne said. She became a Girl Scout leader and taught CCD classes at St. Mary's Church in Hanover.

In retirement, they moved to Florida, where after just one year her husband died of a heart attack at age 62 in 1991. She stayed there for 10 years, then returned to Massachusetts to be near her children.

She makes her own bed and keeps up with the news

With a steady, upright walk and an easy smile, she enjoys having visitors to her one-bedroom apartment, where she lives independently. While she no longer cooks, she fixes her oatmeal breakfast, makes her bed every day, schedules her appointments and keeps up with the news. Her family members supply her other meals.

"She's very strong and stoic," her daughter-in-law Janet, who is married to her son Michael, in Hanover, said. "She is very easy to talk to, very knowledgeable, and has a good sense of humor."

Her nieces and nephews visit often.

Her oldest son, Jack, lives in East Bridgewater; her daughter, Kathleen, is in Hanover. Her son Stephen is in Hull, Gerard is in Rockland, Matthew is in Washington, D.C., and Christopher is in Florida. Her sons Paul and Jimmy are deceased.

In the last five years, Dunne has overcome significant medical challenges, including colon cancer at age 95, when, despite her age, she chose to have surgery. Her son Michael recalled that when the operation was over, the surgeon said, "I've never operated on anyone 95 before, but she seemed to breeze through it."

In recent months, she has been hospitalized for other medical problems but she has recovered and is looking forward to new adventures in 2024.

"I enjoy life," she said, "but it's not all easy street."

Reach Sue Scheible at sscheible@patriotledger.com.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Ellen Dunne, of Hanover, to turn 100 on St. Patrick's Day