They share a birthday and an honor — 102 years in the making
RYE, N.H. — Barbara Long leaned over the armrest of her wheelchair, raising her hand to her mouth as if to whisper to her friend Marion L. Cronin, who sat an arm’s length away in a wheelchair of her own.
Long said she was searching for the words to explain how she and Cronin were “practically twins.” The two women, who now live at the Webster at Rye senior care facility, aren’t related. But they were born on the same day: Feb. 7, 1921.
Since it’s not entirely clear what time of day each one was born, the 102-year-olds were jointly honored on Tuesday as Rye’s oldest residents.
During a brief ceremony Tuesday, town officials presented Long and Cronin with bouquets and certificates to recognize them as the rightful holders of the town’s Boston Post cane — a sentimental New England tradition that began as a marketing gimmick.
In 1909, the Post distributed some 700 ornate, gold-capped canes to towns in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, with directions for the selectmen to celebrate their town’s eldest inhabitant.
At first, Post publisher Edwin A. Grozier called for the canes to be distributed to “citizens,” by which he expressly and exclusively meant men who were registered to vote. Women weren’t deemed eligible for the canes until the 1930s, a decade after they gained voting rights, according to history books authored by Barbara Staples in the 1990s.
The tradition continued, albeit inconsistently, even after the Post stopped publishing in the 1950s. Some canes were lost or stolen, others were stored away for safekeeping, and others still have been returned to their towns after they went missing for years, Staples wrote in one of her books. “Through all this chaos, the canes have endured,” she wrote.
One of Cronin’s three children, Dianne Ryan, said during the ceremony in Rye that she suspects her mother’s longevity may have something to do with heredity. After all, Cronin’s mother lived to be 108, she said.
“I don’t know how I’m going to beat that,” Ryan added with a laugh and a smile.
Cronin was born above a grocery store in New York, where she lived until the 1960s before moving to Connecticut, and then Massachusetts, Ryan said. Cronin had a house in Concord, Mass., and on Cape Cod, and moved into the senior care facility in Rye a couple of years ago.
Cronin said this is her first time in a nursing home. The facility is “just beautiful” and the staff have been “very supportive,” she said.
Long, a mother of three who grew up in Portsmouth, N.H., was described as “fiercely independent” and a golfer. She couldn’t help but chuckle at the attention she and Cronin received, as fellow residents gathered to watch the ceremonial pomp.
“They make so much for just the fact that we live one day after the other, on and on,” she said. “I say to my daughter, ‘Honey, I just keep going.’”
“I’m very grateful,” she added.
Cronin said she appreciates the recognition.
“But I don’t think that makes any difference about our personalities,” she added, telling Long that she figures the two are likely to face some good-natured teasing from their peers.
The two joked with a TV news reporter from WMUR about how they would use the cane. Cronin said she could incorporate it into her dance moves, while Long said it would “come in handy if I ever get in trouble.”
What advice do these elders have for younger generations?
Cronin told the Globe young people should foster a sense of self-discipline and urgency to achieve the potential that sets them apart. Long, meanwhile, emphasized the importance of enjoying life.
“Remember your young days,” Long said. “That’s what I do. Remember you had fun in your day.”
‘They make so much for just the fact that we live one day after the other, on and on. I say to my daughter, “Honey, I just keep going.’”
BARBARA LONG, 102