Longtime Riverhead resident turns 100, reflects on a full life

Jean Wilson Guydish is stepping into her centennial with no signs of slowing down — living proof that it is never too late to find what brings joy in life.

The mother of three, grandmother of four and great-grandmother of three will celebrate her 100th birthday on Sunday, Aug. 16.

The longtime Riverhead resident, who now resides at Brightview Senior Living in Sayville, has stayed busy throughout her life. At Brightview, she is known for being a social butterfly who doesn’t shy away from trying new things.

Despite a few broken bones and health challenges over the years, Ms. Guydish was an avid line dancer and performed with June’s Silver Steppers until she was 90. She is currently taking Italian lessons from another Brightview resident. She has also taken up activities such as mahjong and has always loved dressing up for Halloween.

She texts, takes photos and is very fond of her iPad. She stays active on social media, specifically “the Facebook,” as she calls it. For a lover of clothes and jewelry, her walk-in closet is a “godsend.”

Most importantly, she never leaves her apartment without a flower clip in her hair to match her outfit of the day. 

A Leo at heart, Ms. Guydish never misses an opportunity to celebrate — especially a centennial. She plans to gather with her friends and family at the Maples in Manorville on Saturday and then continue the festivities at Brightview on Sunday.

Jean’s family welcomes anyone who would like to wish her a happy birthday and toast her with a celebratory Tito’s on Saturday, Aug. 15 from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. on the back lawn of the Maples on Ryerson Avenue in Manorville.

“It’s unbelievable,” she told the Riverhead News-Review ahead of her big bash. “A lot of people, they don’t want to tell their ages and they don’t like birthdays, and I said, I’ve really always never said don’t celebrate my birthday — in my older years, I celebrate the whole damn month.” 

Early days in Roosevelt

Madeline Jean Pecoraro was born at Mercy Hospital on Aug. 16, 1926, to Italian immigrant parents who were both from Palermo, Sicily. She grew up in Roosevelt in Nassau County and is the youngest of nine siblings — most of whom lived into their upper 90s. One of her late sisters lived until 102. Her father died at 104.

She remembers the rural charm of Roosevelt and the friendly atmosphere. Her mother found friendship among the neighborhood’s fellow Italians. As the baby of the family, she said her siblings treated her like she was “Queen Mary,” and she was “spoiled rotten.”

After graduating from Hempstead High School in 1943, she went to work for the New York Telephone Company as a long-distance telephone operator. The work came during World War II, when many men were serving overseas.

“It was a very, very hard job,” Ms. Guydish said. She recalled enduring long hours and split shifts as a teenager.

After two years, she took a job at Columbian Bronze Corporation, a propeller manufacturer based in Freeport. When her boyfriend, William Leon Wilson, returned from the war in November 1945, the two married the following summer in 1946.

Cycling into the laundromat business

Shortly after their marriage, her husband spotted a tiny ad in the back of Newsday that asked ‘would you like to start your own business?’ It was for one of the early Bendix coin-operated laundromats.

“My husband says, ‘Gosh, maybe I can do that,’” she remembers. “And I said, ‘What are you going to use for money?’ and he goes, “I’ll take a mortgage out on the house.’” 

The couple rented a storefront in Hempstead and opened Park Lake Laundromat. They papered up the windows, hauled in 20 washers, a dryer, and an extractor, and Ms. Guydish recalled laying the tiles herself. 

A wartime mechanic, Mr. Wilson made sure to keep every machine up and running. Meanwhile, Ms. Guydish helped out at the laundromat during the early-morning rushes and then worked as a bookkeeper at Yellow Book in Rockville Centre in the afternoons.

It was the success of that little laundromat in Hempstead that underwrote the next chapter of their lives in 1956: a move to a sleepy little town called Manorville, a new house, a pivot to a new business, and, not long after, the arrival of their three daughters — Karen, Gail and Lynn. 

A new chapter in Riverhead

They first moved into a split-level house on Ryerson Avenue, where the family lived upstairs and ran Bill’s General Store on the lower level. Back then, it was the part of the main drag of Manorville: the general store sat across from The Maples bar, and nearby was Hoshyla Farms, the firehouse and a real estate office owned by James Rafuse. Shortly after the birth of their first daughter, they built a house on a two-acre property on Silas Carter Road and moved in before the arrival of their second daughter.

In the late 1960s, while raising her family and helping her husband with the general store, Ms. Guydish landed a job with Suffolk County in data processing.

From 1968 until 1989, she was part of a group of “data processing girls.” During her lunch breaks, she would browse the many thriving department stores and downtown staples, such as Swezey’s and Lentin’s. She couldn’t resist making a stop at one of her favorite jewelers too.

For a bite to eat, she enjoyed stopping at Star Confectionery on Main Street and Modern Snack Bar in Aquebogue, where she enjoyed striking up conversations with strangers.

“They had the best meals,” she reminisced. “We used to go on a Sunday, and we’d meet somebody that would be sitting next to us.” 

In 1971, Mr. Wilson sold the general store. The couple later divorced, and Mr. Wilson died in 1981. She remarried in 1984 to George Guydish, who worked at Brookhaven National Laboratory. After living in Manorville for a few more years, they sold their house and moved to Florida.

After nine years in Florida, with grandchildren arriving, she and George decided it was time to return to Riverhead. They settled into a double-wide mobile home in the Oakland Ridge community in 1997. Mr. Guydish died in 2006.

A love for line dancing and more

In the 1990s and into the 2000s, she was actively involved in both the Riverhead and Flanders senior centers, where in her 60s she discovered a new passion: line dancing. 

Her love for the country-western dancing became a significant chapter in Ms. Guydish’s life. She joined June’s Silver Steppers, a group of older women who donned matching outfits and traveled all over the East End to perform at various community events. 

She taught line dancing too at the senior centers, often handwriting the dance steps before her classes.

Even later in life, she found love again in her 80s when her friend set her up with Arnold Sims. He was her “sweetheart” until he died in 2019.

Reflecting on her mother’s 100 years, Lynn said rather than different chapters, she feels her mother has experienced many lifetimes. 

“We’re very lucky that she’s healthy as she is, and she’s pretty goddamn sharp,” Lynn said. “She did the best she could for us.”

Ms. Guydish takes great pride in her self-sufficiency and her lifelong ability to care for herself. To her, age is not a barrier to living an active and fulfilling life.

“Everybody’s life has ups and downs, but you have to enjoy life, and you have to make friends,” Ms. Guydish shared her secret to longevity. “You have to find your own happiness.