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04/25/2023 08:06 AMAgatha Esposito believes that when a project is started, it must be completed. Examples of that belief are present in her room at her residence at the Village at Mariner’s Point assisted living complex.
“I’ve been a busy girl all my life, really. I made this quilt. All the embroidery that you see around.”
Intricately designed quilts and embroideries make up her bed and the walls of her room at Mariner’s Point, with themes of birds, nature, and love for one another. She reads from the first half of one of them right above her bed:
“I don’t need a great deal of love,” but then adds, “That’s not true. I have to have the love of my kids.”
She’s been busy all her life and does things her way. According to her son Ron, there was a line Agatha would always repeat to others as a summation of who she was.
“I’ll do what I want when I want if I want,” she said once again.
From the love of her children to her personal projects, Agatha seeks completion everywhere, including the material she reads. Agatha feels compelled to finish reading whatever newspaper or book she starts and is enthusiastic about learning from the content of the kind of print in her hand. She also has a bulky booklet full of word searches, through which she is almost halfway done.
She does not recall much of her life during World War II, but she does remember newspapers, the only source of information for what was occurring during the conflict. From then up to now, she still does not miss a word in her booklet or the papers.
“Whatever was important at the time that the newspaper, I read it…a newspaper from a year ago—well, I probably would skim through it. To see if there’s anything here that I missed.”
Agatha was born on April 17, 1923, on the Canadian island of Newfoundland. Her father immigrated to the United States when she was one year old. After settling in with a job and a home in New Haven, he was able to then provide for his Agatha and her mother to move to the city as well.
“I think I was about a year old when my father came to find a job and a place to live [in New Haven]. And when he did that, he sent for my mother and me. The tools came, and then I was about a year old at that point.”
Agatha was a teacher in Westbrook for a long time, having received her certification from a teacher’s college in New Haven. To get to her teaching job every day, she would take one of the historic trolley lines of the area.
“I taught school for many years. I think we taught basically everything.”
When asked why she wanted to become a teacher, she responded, “Who knows! I had to be interested in it; otherwise, I wouldn’t have done it.”
As long the interest was there, Agatha knew there was a job to be seen through. And having reached the age of 100, she has seen and experienced the “beginning of mostly everything,” she says.
“If I was interested enough, then I would finish it. Anything that I thought I could do, I attempted. If I couldn’t do it, then I stopped. Otherwise, I finished the job.”
As a well-traveled person, completing what was started applies to her voyages. She has traveled to all 50 states, including Hawaii and Alaska. In fact, she has been to each of those two non-continental states not once but twice.
She and her late second husband drove a camper they owned all the way from Connecticut to Alaska, trekking through her birthplace of Canada to reach their destination. She also traveled to the British Isles, Mexico, and Jerusalem and sailed through the Panama Canal.
She was also an avid dancer, practicing both square and round dancing. The company was an important part of the hobby, and she loved it “because of the people with me.”
Having seen so much and been to every state in the country, she has simple advice for people if they want to live a long and fruitful life.
“Don’t smoke, don’t drink…you know why you shouldn’t do it anyway!”