Oceanside's Ruth Fortin turns 100

Ruth Fortin proves that it’s never too late to make new friends. For her 100th birthday celebration on July 30, her sons threw her a birthday party on her driveway and invited all the neighbors, some of whom Fortin had never met. The celebrations continued at First Presbyterian Church in Oceanside.

“My neighbors are just the most wonderful young women I’ve ever met in my life,” she said.

Fortin’s parents first moved to Oceanside from Connecticut because her father, who was a carpenter, heard there was a lot of construction in the area. He got a job with Abraham Levitt, who started the company that built Levittown. The family rented a garage and installed a bathroom while Fortin’s father built their house on Washington Avenue, where Fortin grew up. At the time, there was nothing built between the house and Long Beach Road, making for a lonely childhood. When Fortin was eight, five houses were built on the street that backed up to her house, and a Norwegian girl, Elsie Fitzman, moved in and the two became good friends.

Fortin remembers a time when the area was so undeveloped that one of the neighbors kept a cow in their backyard. A nearby farmer owned six goats, and Fortin’s family kept chickens. When Fortin was younger, there was an open field behind the Oceanside laundry. On Saturdays, she and her friend would watch men from nearby towns arriving on their horses to play polo. Fortin and her friend would sit on the limb of a sassafras tree at the edge of the field, chew the bark, and watch the polo games.

Fortin remembers the great depression when her father went to the bank in Rockville Centre that held the mortgage on the family house. The bank manager agreed to allow him to just pay the interest so he wouldn’t lose his house. When the mortgage was eventually paid off years later, her parents had a celebration dinner at a German restaurant on Sunrise Highway.

After graduating from Oceanside High School in 1941, Fortin got a job as a telephone accountant for New York Telephone in Hempstead. She stayed there for 11 years and was promoted to equipment manager before being forced to leave when she became pregnant with her first child.

Fortin met her husband Robert on a blind date. He served in World War II and contracted malaria, which affected him on and off even after they were married. They lived with her parents for a year before getting a separate apartment. Meanwhile, her father and his coworkers under Mr. Levitt built the house that she eventually moved into with her husband, and where she still lives today. They were married for 38 years before he passed away.

Fortin volunteered at South Nassau Communities Hospital (now Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital) for 55 years.

She delivered medicine, transported equipment, delivered paperwork, and worked in the gift shop. She temporarily stopped volunteering when her husband Robert got sick. After he passed away, she went back. She still goes out to lunch with the other volunteers she met at the Hospital and recalls how much they all loved working there.

Fortin has two sons, Douglas, and Charlie. She has five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. She lives with Douglas, but both of her sons make sure she has everything she needs and take her to all her appointments. She says her neighbors also make sure to ask her if she needs anything and offers to drive her if she needs to go anywhere.

After Fortin’s long life, she knows the key to having peace and harmony.

“We should want to be friends with everybody,” said Fortin.