Regency resident Irene Gaudio is celebrating her 90th birthday this December and boy does she make 90 look good! Irene will be the first to tell you that even though she now resides at The Regency, deep down, she is still just a farm girl from South Dakota, and she wouldn’t have it any other way… Irene grew up on her family’s 180 acre farm in Howard, South Dakota where she rode horses, herded cattle and helped her mother milk cows. Besides the cattle, dairy cows and horses, there were also pigs, chickens, roosters and even a bull to keep Irene and her brothers and sister occupied. Irene loved all of the animals but she always loved the horses the most! She learned to ride when she was only three years old and it has been a passion of hers ever since. Irene’s family also grew corn, wheat and barley and her mother had a beautiful vegetable garden. Irene recalls that people used to come from all over the county to buy her mother’s canned vegetables.
Irene attended Henden Grade School, a one room school house, for eight years. There were a total of sixteen students in the whole school and nine of them were her cousins. Irene’s dad gave her an old racehorse named Babe that she would ride to school three miles every day. In the winter time, her dad would hook the sleigh up to the horses to take Irene, her sister and sometimes their neighbor, Imogene, to school. He would warm up bricks in the oven and put them on the bottom of the sleigh to help keep their feet warm and toasty for the ride. Even with the sleigh though, sometimes the snow would get so high that school would be canceled for weeks. Then Irene would get to stay home and make fudge and ice cream with her mother and play cards with her sister and brothers.
When Irene turned 14 she moved into town and lived with her cousins so she could attend high school. She worked at Carlen’s Grocery Store every day after school. When she graduated, she moved to Sioux Falls and became a telephone operator. She eventually transferred to Chicago aka “the Big City”, where she ended up meeting her husband. She put him through Dental School at Northwestern University by working at Illinois Bell. They later had 3 children and raised them in Lake Forest, a suburb of Chicago. Irene later retired to Florida.
Now Irene is really enjoying living in New York and being so close to her daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren. And she even gets to spend time with the horses because her son-in-law is in the horse business! She also loves attending the HorseAbility program with The Regency. HorseAbility is an Equine Therapy Program at SUNY Old Westbury that Regency residents have been participating in.
Whenever she returns from a visit there, she always has a twinkle in her eye and some amazing stories to tell about her experiences. Everyone here at The Regency wishes Irene a very, very Happy 90th Birthday! We are so lucky she chose The Regency for her new home! We have had so much fun getting to know her and her wonderful family. And without a doubt, once you have the pleasure of meeting Irene, it doesn’t take long to see that she is STILL just a farm girl at heart!