GETTING HER KICKS AT 106!
Staying active, lots of vegetables and never marr ying: One of The Bronx’s oldest residents shares her secrets to longevity
LOUISE Jean Signore wishes people still danced the way they used to in the 1940s, when she’d twirl around Midtown’s Roseland Ballroom every Saturday.
“I always loved dancing,” says the longtime Bronx resident. “I don’t ballroom-dance anymore but even now, I put on the TV and if there’s music, I dance by myself.”
On Tuesday, there were more than 100 potential fox-trotters at her feet when the lively Signore celebrated her birthday — her 106th. A local band played in her honor at the Bartow Senior Center, near her home in Co-Op City. Signore’s been a regular at the center since she retired from her job as an administrative assistant at the MTA in 1977, when she was 65.
Although she adores a good party, the 4-foot-5 firecracker admits she finds her age a bit daunting.
“I never thought I would get to this,” she tells The Post. “When I first started coming to the center, there was a woman who was 100 years old. I said, ‘Oh, my gosh, she’s 100!’ And here, I’m 106.”
She says she has a lifetime of physical activity to thank for her impressive longevity.
She started swimming every summer at the age of 9, when family friends rented a bungalow at Orchard Beach. As an adult, she walked everywhere she could, and stepped up her exercise routine after she retired. Her mother had moved years ago to Margate, Fla., and Signore started spending her winters there, playing
bocce every morning, and then swimming and biking all afternoon. At night, she line-danced, something she also did up north at the senior center.
“It starts when you’re young,” says Signore of developing good, healthy habits. Over the years, arthritis, hearing loss and poor eyesight forced her to abandon outdoor sports, but she’s never stopped exercising: “things like lifting my legs, pulling my knees up to my chest.”
She’s also conscious of her diet, one she attributes to her ItalianAmerican upbringing.
“We had salad, fruit and vegetables every single night,” she remembers fondly. “And we always had wine on the table. We only had cake and soda on Sundays.”
These days, Signore, who lives independently, typically eats simple, easy-to-prepare meals such as soups and sandwiches, but she still likes robust flavors.
“I got very sick this past winter, and I got Meals on Wheels,” she says. “The food is bland, so I had to doctor it up: I added tomato sauce, or garlic and olive oil, to everything.”
When it comes to staying sharp, Signore believes in the power of a good routine, especially for a retiree like herself.
She gets up at 8 a.m., every day: “Just like I was going to work.” After a breakfast of water, coffee or tea, pumpernickel bread and some cereal with fresh fruit, she often heads out to the senior center for an exercise class, a lecture or some socializing. Sadly, she says she’s outlived the vast majority of her friends.
“You’ve got to keep active,” she says. Although she balances her busy schedule by getting plenty of rest, too.
In her commuting days, she would nap on her two-hour trek from MTA headquarters in Bowling Green, all the way back up to The Bronx.
“I used to sleep in the subway because it was safe to do it then,” says Signore. “I got used to taking a nap.” When she retired, she kept up the daily habit.
Signore strongly believes that good food and exercise — not pills — are the best medicine.
“People take too many prescriptions,” she says. “I only take blood pressure medication, because the doctor said it was very important. But that’s it.” Signore says her little sister — who, at 101, is the only of her four siblings still living — also avoids pills.
Signore had a close call at the age of 103, when she was brutally mugged outside her apartment as she returned from her daily dance class at the community center. The assailant pushed her to the ground and stole $35, two meals, a magnifying glass and a pack of bingo cards. Signore got a nasty bump on her head but didn’t let the nightmare experience hold her back.
“I’m going to go out,” she told The Post at the time. “I’m in good shape.”
Throughout her life, Signore stayed close to her family, who also benefited from good genes: Her mother lived until 97 and her three brothers — including a set of twins — all lived into their mid-90s. Her father only made it to 79 but, as Signore explains, he was less wary of prescription medications and had a taste for whiskey. “I think that’s what killed him,” she says.
Despite warm memories of family life, she never married or had children. The love of her life was killed overseas in World War II.
“I’m single,” she says, with a laugh. “I think that’s one of my [longevity] secrets, too.”