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103-Year-Old
Wins Wonderword Contest
 At
103, Georgianna Pierini is our oldest Wonderword
player. Mrs. Pierini of East Greenwich, RI has
been playing Wonderword for the past 20 years,
starting with a Wonderword daily calendar and
progressing to books. “It gives me something
to do and keeps my mind sharp,” she says.
“I like everything about it.”
The
Governor of Rhode Island recognized her birthday
last June with an official proclamation. Other
than some hearing lost, Mrs. Pierini is in good
health and spirits, taking care of her Italian
greyhound, Elmo, and loved by her daughter, 11
grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren.
Mrs.
Pierini, once an avid knitter and teacher of knitting,
attributes her longevity to a life of hard work
in a textile mill and walking, walking, walking
everywhere before owning her first car –
a Ford Model T. “I really think my health
now is due to all the walking I did then,”
she adds. She also has had her share of homemade
bread and butter and tea, but no milk. “I’ve
never liked milk. I remember my father making
me drink some once and it came up as fast as it
went down,” Mrs. Pierini says.
Married
61 years to her late husband, Michael Matthews
Pierini, she was born in Massachusetts and moved
to Canada as a child and back to the states when
she was 18. Actually, it was a puzzle—a
jigsaw puzzle—that brought her and her husband
together.
“I
met Michael when I first came back to America.
Back then, we had Saturday night house parties.
I was invited to one and met this man, who, no
matter where I sat, kept coming to sit next to
me. I thought to myself, ‘how rude.’
But on Sunday, he came to my house with a puzzle
that we pieced together and that was that,”
she adds.
Mrs.
Pierini believes old age isn’t for sissies.
There are many people gone now whom she sorely
misses. But she’s hanging in there—playing
solitude, working Wonderword puzzles and bringing
a smile with her sharp wit to all who know her.
Runner
Up Has Spunk
 To
prove her age, our second-oldest Wonderword player
sent in her driver’s license. Even though
the license doesn’t expire until 2009, Mrs.
Eliza Ammerall doesn’t need it: She stopped
driving two years ago at the age of 98. This April
she turned 100.
Maybe
it’s the Wonderword puzzles she does on
a regular basis or maybe it’s the fact that
she loves keeping up with the horse races in Saratoga,
but this is a lady with spunk. Her memory is so
clear that often members of the historical society
in her hometown of Broadalbin, NY will bring over
old photos for her to identify people and places.
The
former elementary school teacher is a loyal Wonderword
fan and looks forward to receiving it daily in
her newspaper, the Amsterdam Recorder, which she
reads from cover to cover. “I enjoy the
puzzles. I taught school for many years and I
think it’s something that keeps my mind
sharp and helps me to pass the time,” Mrs.
Ammerall says.
Mrs.
Ammerall also loves to read, especially historical
novels. At the time we interviewed her, she was
reading “The Best Loved Poems of Jacqueline
Kennedy-Onassis.” A graduate of the State
University of New York College at Oneonta, Mrs.
Ammerall taught in a one-room school house and
remembers traveling by horse and carriage.
“The
thing that most amazes me today is the speed of
things, especially the automobile,” she
says. “As child growing up, I lived on a
farm and we had horses, now the world moves so
fast.”
When
asked her secret to a long life, Mrs. Ammerall
quips, “I don’t know how I got here.”
Other than her hearing, she is healthy and still
likes her sweets. She is also a breast cancer
survivor.
Mrs.
Ammerall raised three children and has 15 grandchildren
and 21 great-grandchildren. Widowed twice, she
was married to two “wonderful” men,
she says.
Even though she loved to travel, Mrs. Ammerall
was born and raised in nearby Broadalbin, NY and
always remained in the Amsterdam area, never venturing
too far from home.
Youngest
Wonderword Player Starts First Grade
Zachary
Myrtle of Rhode Island runs down the driveway
each Sunday morning to retrieve the newspaper
before anyone else has a chance to grab it. “I’m
addicted to word searches,” he once told
his grandfather.
At
five and a half, Zachary is our youngest Wonderword
player.
Zachary
took to reading at an early age. In August 2006,
Zachary started first grade, but he’s reading
at a second grade level. Zachary’s hometown
newspaper features a kids’ activity page
filled with jokes, puzzles and games. Both he
and his eight-year-old sister, Kathryn, are big
fans of the kids’ page. But his favorite
puzzle, by far, is Wonderword. And the words he
doesn’t know, he looks up in the dictionary.
But
Zachery’s no bookworm. His other hobbies
are sports, swimming and playing basketball and
baseball. His proud parents are his mom, Coby,
a nursing student and staffing coordinator at
a hospital and his father, John, a grocery manager.
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