Already a few days into age 104, Shirley O’Connell is as full of life as ever. As she celebrated, she wore a birthday tiara and a sash that said “104 and Fabulous,” and sat in her “computer chair” where she loves to make homemade cards on her desktop.
There were cards that O’Connell made dating back as early as 2003, and that was just one of a bunch.
O’Connell was joined on Wednesday by her granddaughter Kerri Cortez and her daughter-in-law Debbie O’Connell, and they all sat in Shirley’s Atria apartment recalling memories of her life, starting with her boxes of white cards. Debbie said Shirley makes her cards for any and all occasions.
“That box over here on the table is full of them, and we have another box at home, and that’s just us. She makes cards for everyone here that has a birthday here in Atria,” Debbie said.
“Probably 35 years or more. Well, this was for a birthday, but there’s a thank you, and sympathy, and whatever you needed a card,” said Shirley about how long it has been since she started making her cards.
Cortez began talking about her and her grandmother’s time together and how they do their hangouts every three weeks.
“We normally go out to lunch. She loves going to Chili’s. We split the shrimp fajitas. We always get a margarita. She always gets a margarita,” said Cortez. “And then we go thrift store shopping, and then we get our nails done, and then she always gets something special with her nails, like she got reindeer once on her nails. She got snowflakes.”
Shirley walked over with a photo of the nail treatment she planned on getting for Valentine’s Day – red heart-shaped French tips.
Cortez and Debbie added that Shirley loved parties.
“She used to have parties: Christmas parties, Fourth of July parties. (She) used to go around and spray carnations, red, white, and blue, and she just, she loves her parties, and she loves getting together with her family. She still does parties here,” Debbie said.
After talking about parties, Shirley kept saying she had 44,500 photos on her computer desktop and began showing photos of celebrities she met throughout the years. Celebrities like actress Betty White, news anchor Sam Rubin and actor and comedian Carl Reiner were some of many with whom she had photos.
Shirley talked about her best friends: one being the daughter of the founder of Gelson’s Markets, another coming in second place after actress Debbie Reynolds during a beauty pageant, and a third being an accomplished dancer in New York who performed in front of five different presidents of the United States.
She talked about her various jobs throughout her life like selling big machinery, being a telephone operator but being fired due to her hearing loss in one ear and working at a department store selling lingerie in her 20’s.
“One day, he told me to see if I could sell a machine. It was an old machine. I couldn’t sell it. But after that, I started trying to help him sell machines. And he told me there was a machine in Canada he wanted me to find,” Shirley recalled of her job selling machinery. “I said, ‘What city?’ He says, ‘I don’t know,’ but I found it. And I found so many machines for him. It was a boatload. He paid off his condo with the machines that I found.”
Toward the end of the conversation, Cortez said that her grandmother always looks for a surprise every day.
“Well, you never know what the surprise is going to be. When I came to the party that Atria put on for me, the two of you were there with the champagne and the glitter. It was a big surprise to me. Every day is a surprise,” Shirley said.
“Every day she finds something. If we’re out together, she’s like, ‘Well, this is my surprise for the day,’” Cortez said.
