A LONG LIFE OF FAITH

Cathy Aiken closes the door behind her and swiftly walks down the stone pathway through her garden. She lives by herself. “The woman of the hour!” Sue Brown, Cathy’s friend of 30 years calls out. “I don’t know about that,” Aiken says with a chuckle. She’s small, maybe 5-foot-3, but quick. It’s hard to comprehend the number of years she’s been around: a whopping 96.  

“You’d think you were in heaven if you came here a week ago,” Aiken says in a sing-song speech pattern. “The garden was loaded: gladiolus, Brown-eyed Susan’s, daisies, it was a beautiful garden, it was the best. I think (deer are) sleeping in my snowballs because they’re all flat.” 
Jumping inside Brown’s van, Aiken seamlessly finds her way to the front seat, and they head down the road to the quaint chapel of St. Mary of the Assumption Church in Huletts Landing, where Aiken has volunteered since 1986. 

Every Saturday morning at 10 a.m., Aiken prepares the parish for 6 p.m. Mass. She is responsible for setting up the altar and assigning various roles for others to do, such as determining who will hand out the bulletins and assigning Eucharistic ministers and readers. She also is entirely responsible for cleaning the linens, a lengthy process involving not only washing, but soaking the cloth for hours, starching, and lastly, ironing them for the next Mass. This has been her routine for the last 33 years. And let’s keep in mind: Aiken is 96 years old! 

Aiken moved to Huletts Landing, a lakeside community on the shore of Lake George, upon retirement after residing with her husband, William, in Whitehall most of her life. Her home, built by her husband after they bought land, overlooks the lake via an extensive balcony, all encompassed by the Adirondack Park. Married in September 1947, the two were together for 51 years before he died. 

Although a dedicated Catholic, church isn’t the only thing keeping Aiken busy. For more than 30 years, she’s been on a bowling team that starts on the Tuesday after Labor Day and meets weekly. About five years after moving to Huletts Landing, she joined a monthly book club, where members meet on the third Wednesday of every month at various houses across Ticonderoga. Aiken, however, was about to drop out of the book club after more than 25 years because there wasn’t enough discussion surrounding the books, but the last meeting convinced her to stay. 

“It’s so funny because Wednesday I said to myself, if we don’t discuss the book the moment I get there, I’m going to tell them I’m not coming back,” Aiken said, “And I’ll be a son of a gun, on Wednesday they discussed the book the minute they got there. And I have to get the book in large print.” 
This is the story of Cathy Aiken, 96 years young, who has lived a long life of faith and family, survived a scare with cancer and talks with The Evangelist about it all.

‘I LOVE MY BREAKFAST’

A typical day for Aiken involves various trips, but its beginnings are modest. Every morning she wakes up at 7 a.m. and eats her breakfast: one cup of coffee, two slices of toast with butter and jam, and a glass of orange juice. Aiken has a hiatal hernia, which doesn’t allow her to eat much. For lunch, she’ll usually have a bowl of soup or half a sandwich, and for dinner, most of the time, someone takes her out to eat. “But breakfast, I love my breakfast” Aiken said with eyebrows raised, “I cook by myself and I do it because I need energy and that’s it.” 

Every morning after her breakfast, she showers and sits on her sofa, hands placed in her lap and feet elevated to increase circulation, to pray her Rosary. 

“I will sit here, every morning after my breakfast-shower, I sit right here with my feet up like this, and I say prayers for all of my family, all of the people in Huletts, all my priest friends who have died, all my granddaughters and grandsons, and I just keep saying rosaries.” 

Her dedication to the rosary is something that has been consistent throughout her entire life, according to her daughter, Stephanie Aiken Copeland. 
“Like my mother used to say to me, ‘Cathy, you don’t have to tell anyone how much you pray,’ and it’s the truth, but I do say a lot of rosaries,” Aiken added. “And I go to adoration on Thursdays, I have one tonight, it’s from 6 to 8.”

EARLY LIFE

One of nine children, Aiken grew up during the Great Depression, although money was never a problem for the family. Every day Aiken would eat fruits and vegetables grown from their garden, with the exception of Thursdays and Sundays, when her entire family would sit down for spaghetti and meatballs. 

Before moving to Whitehall around the age of 10, Aiken lived in Dresden, where her father worked for the railroad that ran through the town. This allowed her, along with her brothers and sister, to ride the train for free. Every Saturday, Aiken would take the train into Whitehall, where it stopped directly in front of the church, Our Lady of Angels, the same parish her parents got married, and pick her up at 2:30 p.m. to catch a ride back to Dresden. 

She still remembers what it felt like to be 10 years old, riding the train. 

“I had a light green coat, I’ll never forget it, and I thought I was the cat’s meow, with that light green coat,” said Aiken, clearly reminiscing about the event near 90 years ago. “And I had long, long, long, blonde curly hair. My mother used to make curls and I had long blonde curly hair.”

Aiken graduated from high school  in 1940 at 16 and immediately began teaching faith formation and preparation classes at Our Lady of Angels and Notre Dame des Victoires for children to receive their first Holy Communion. She would teach there nearly 33 years. With 20 children per class, Aiken estimates she prepared a minimum of 400 children for their first Communion. 

Her career with chil­dren didn’t end there. For 15 years, Aiken worked in the attendance office at Whitehall Central High School. After attendance was taken, Aiken would be tasked with looking over a list of children who were absent, getting into her car, and driving to their homes to see if they were actually sick. Retiring in 1976, she left a big impression on some of the younger people in Whitehall. 

Aiken recalls a time when her son went into MacLeod’s Hardware store in Whitehall and was confronted by the man working behind the register after using Aiken’s credit card. 

“He says, ‘Oh my God, your mother came to my house because I was absent. She came into my bedroom, she took her hand on my forehead and she said ‘Oh yes, you have a temperature. You’re sick.’” Aiken said.

She also had five children of her own: William, Carl, Mary Beth (Hadeka), Stephanie (Copeland) and Cathy (LaBombard). 

Later in life, Aiken, as a member of the Catholic Daughters of the Americas, was tasked with sending out cards to others in the organization in the case of someone’s death and for holidays. She paid for her own stamps and cards every time. Then, Rev. David LeFort, Vicar General for the Diocese of Albany, invited  her to send cards to all the seminarians for major holidays, allowing for even more relationships to blossom between Aiken and the community. 

“When (current priest) Father Rendell Torres came, my daughter Cathy came to Huletts and she said: ‘Now father, I want to tell you about my mother, and he said, ‘You don’t have to tell me anything about your mother, I’ve been getting cards from her for years,’ ” Aiken said, “He was a seminarian and he said he has every card I’ve ever mailed.” 

NOT WITHOUT HARDSHIPS

Although accomplished and with endless energy, Aiken’s life hasn’t been without hardships. 

Her brother, Samuel Frandino, was killed in the invasion of Normandy in World War II, and her son, William, was killed in Vietnam just two months after being deployed. While her son is buried in the family lot, her brother wanted to be buried with his comrades in Britain. 

“When I saw my brother’s grave, they said they’ve never seen anyone fall apart (like that),” Aiken said. 

Every Memorial Day, Aiken, as a gold-star mother, is a part of the parade. For the past 40 years, she’s been commemorating her son at Adirondack Community College. Every year, two days after Memorial Day, the college hosts a ceremony commemorating all the young men in Washington County killed in the Vietnam War. Parents are invited, one-by-one, to place a rose on their son’s photo which hangs on a wall and to be saluted again.

Aiken has also battled cancer, when at 27, she was diagnosed with colon cancer and told she only had three years to live. After seeking approval to start contraception from numerous priests, she was denied. All four of them told her to “live a normal life.”

“So you want to know what I said to my husband?” Aiken said, “Alright Billy, let’s just live a normal life. I had three children after that and I’m still here.” 

The cancer remained dormant for five years and then she had surgery to remove the majority of her large intestine. The doctors would tell her she was clear. 

Aiken would eventually partner with Molly McMaster, who founded the Colon Club in 2003 after being diagnosed at age 23, and be featured on the cover of the 2010 ‘Colendar,’ a calendar used as an educational tool for those who had cancer or were in recovery. Each month features a different model exposing their scars. After her photo shoot, Aiken would speak to Colon Club members frequently about her experience for the next 10 years.

“It just gave them a little bit of hope because ... I would tell them about my episode,” Aiken said. 

Through every challenge life threw her way, she’s always made practicing her faith a priority. 

As for Aiken’s favorite sports team, she beams with excitement. Perhaps an unpopular opinion, it’s the Boston Red Sox. Why? To show solidarity with her adopted grandson, who felt alienated surrounded by Yankee fans. 

“And let me tell you, I am a Red Sox fan and I love those Red Sox,” Aiken said, “They are not doing too good, the Yankees are just going away like crazy. But don’t forget, the Red Sox had 118 wins last year! And the Yankees are not that close.”  

While Aiken displays an abundance of confidence and optimism, moving through each one of her days with a seemingly endless amount of energy, when she lies in bed with her rosary beads under her pillow, this nonagenarian can’t help but think about how many more years she has left. 

“I go, ‘How am I going to die? Am I going to die in my sleep? Is the cancer going to show up again? How am I going to die?’ And you know that’s puzzling. It’s puzzling.” Aiken said. 

Aiken recalls her daughter, Mary Beth, joking when they spoke about plans for her funeral. 

“ ‘Ma, we’re not going to have any wake,’” Aiken, who has written her own obituary, recalls her saying, “‘just the day of the funeral I’m going to have a big, big, big party at the Fairhaven Inn.’ ”