Catholic Transcript Online

"Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many." – Author unknown

"It takes a long time to become young." – Pablo Picasso

SIMSBURY – Teddy Roosevelt was president. Jack London had recently published The Call of the Wild. The first Model A Ford had just been sold. Pope Leo XIII had just died, and Pope Pius X had yet to be elected. And, on Sunday, July 26, 1903 – the feast of Saint Anne – Ann M. Roderick was born.

On that same date in 2010, Miss Roderick marked her 107^{th birthday at a Mass at St. Mary Church in Simsbury, celebrated by Father William R. Metzler in front of about 50 parishioners, family and friends. Again, it was the feast of Saint Anne, for whom she was named.}

Her family moved from New York City to Tariffville when she was a child, and her father worked in the shade tobacco industry. She graduated from Tariffville’s grammar school, then called the Griswold School. A 1923 photo shows she was the only female member of the Tariffville Fife and Drum Corps. She attended Sacred Heart High School in West Hartford, before entering the nursing school at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford.

During her long career as a nurse anesthetist, she raised a niece, Marie (Roderick) Bergeron, and a nephew, Paul Roderick, following the death in 1944 of their father, her brother.

Mr. Roderick said that after she retired, she just kept finding things to do. In 1973, she received a special Jaycee award from then-U.S. Rep. Ella Grasso. "Her next step in life, at age 70, she went to Colorado to join the Peace Corps," Mr. Roderick said. "She was [sent] to Monrovia, Liberia, South Africa, where she worked in a hospital for two years. She ran a floor for nursing."

In 1985, Miss Roderick became an extraordinary minister of holy Communion for St. Bernard Parish in Tariffville, where she had been an active parishioner since childhood. Her tireless work for the parish earned her the archdiocese’s St. Joseph Medal of Appreciation in 2002, the year that then-Archbishop Daniel A. Cronin inaugurated the yearly honors.

In 2003, the Town of Simsbury honored her on her 100th birthday. In 2005, the Tariffville Village Association named her Citizen of the Year.

In his homily on her 107th birthday, Father Metzler referred to the Gospel reading about Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed (Mt 13:31-32), in which Jesus says, "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."

"What is this mysterious kingdom?" Father Metzler asked. "It’s getting up when your bones are creaky and going to church," he said, glancing at Miss Roderick in the front pew. "And it’s about singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to a 107-year-old woman, which you know we’re going to do."

He could have been talking about Miss Roderick when he added that the kingdom of heaven is "the thousand tiny things that you and I do every day."

Miss Roderick walked into the church without a cane or walker but with assistance from her sacristan from St. Bernard Church in Tariffville, Laura White; and from her niece, Mrs. Bergeron. Both women sat with her in the right transept of the cruciform church. Miss Roderick sat for most of the Mass, but she stood for the Gospel.

After the Mass, a small party for invited guests was held at Miss Roderick’s Tariffville home.