‘Ambitious’ Aunt Jean celebrates 100 years

By Eric Seiverling
eseiverling@yourmvi.com
While most people consider their birthday a special time, for North Charleroi native Jean Roberts, her birthday on Dec. 7 will take on an extra special meaning.
Born in 1919, Roberts is celebrating her 100th birthday this year.
To commemorate the event, her friends and family are throwing a special party for her at St. Spyridon Church tonight.
But Roberts is quick to point out it won’t be a surprise party.
“They had surprise parties for my 90th and 95th birthdays,” she said with a laugh. “A surprise party might be too much for me now.”
Born in North Charleroi with five siblings, Roberts — often referred to as “Aunt Jean” by family and friends — said she knew from an early age what she wanted to do with her life.
“From the time I was a kid I always wanted to be a nurse,” she said.
She graduated from Charleroi Area High School in 1937 at the age of 17, an age she said was too young to enter into nursing school, so she took classes at the Carnegie School for Women, which eventually became Carnegie Mellon University.
In the late ’40s, she left North Charleroi for schooling in Ohio and Minnesota, and 18 years later returned to North Charleroi and worked as a nurse at Allegheny General Hospital.
She later became a physical therapist.
“After the first world war, they were using phys ed teachers to get people up and moving again,” she said. “We turned that into the American Physical Therapy Association.”
Along with science, nursing and physical therapy, Roberts said she loves to travel, and she’s visited Tokyo, New Zealand, southern China, Fiji, Hawaii and Alaska.
“You learn from other cultures and meeting different people,” she said.
Roberts never married and doesn’t have any kids, but she’s always considered her 10 — now nine — nieces and nephews as her own.
“They’ve been great to me,” she said. “That’s why I call them my kids.”
Susan Zahand, one of Roberts’ nieces, said her aunt was too active to be concerned about finding a husband.
“She was too ambitious,” Zahand said. “The timing was never right.”
Even at 100 years old, Roberts lives alone and still drives herself around to the church clubs she attends.
What’s Roberts’ secret to a long and healthy life?
“I never abused my body and always eat a healthy diet,” she said.
“I’m sure genes have something to do with it.”