Anita Ciafardini may have just turned 100, but she still lives alone and even voted in the 2024 general election.
Ciafardini is the youngest of nine, born in West Virginia on Nov. 22, 1924. Her mother died shortly after giving birth to her, and she and some of her siblings were placed in various orphanages.
When asked what life was like growing up, Ciafardini said, “Oh, it was a mess.”
Ciafardini’s parents were Italian immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island on April 23, 1908.
Her family was scattered around between West Virginia and Ohio. Ciafardini was around six or seven when she left West Virginia and came to Northern Kentucky. She was eventually placed into St. Joseph Orphanage in Cold Spring, where she gave her first communion.
While at the orphanage, Ciafardini met her two sisters, Gilda and Gloria, at age 8 during “Orphanage Day” at Coney Island.
One thing Cafardini said she would never forget was when Christmas came at the orphanage, they got a stocking.
“I can still see that orange right on the top and a candy cane,” she said. “It was a big thing for us. It was some Christmas candy-no toys.”
She then lived with Gilda and Gloria at the Sisters of Good Shepherd in Fort Thomas until age 14, when her sister Lena took her into her care. Ciafardini eventually met the rest of her siblings at a family gathering.
Ciafardini said she wanted to go to Newport High School but had to stay home to help her sister care for her niece and their home. After graduating from the eighth grade, Ciafardini never returned to school.
At 17, she began working.
“My sister Gloria was working at Wadsworth watch company [in Dayton, Ky.], and Lena said, ‘Get her [Ciafardini] a job.’ And Gloria said, ‘I can’t. She’s not old enough. Lena said, “We’ll make it-she’ll get there. So, Lena lied. She was a sharpie.”
Wadsworth changed from a watch company to a gun parts maker during the war. Ciafardini would bring her money home to help the family.
“The more you made, the more you made your salary,” she said. “I kept my family there. They made it. I made it.”
Though Ciafardini worked at Wadsworth for much of her early life, she waitressed for most of her life, retiring when she was 75. A restaurant with many memories for her is The Avenue, which was in Bellevue, where she worked in the early 1960s.
At The Avenue, Ciafardini served Pete Rose and Johnny Bench.
While waitressing, Ciafardini said she “made money” and could support her family, which eventually became her own daughters, Barbara, Carmella “Decca,” and Donna, born in 1954, 1955 and 1956.
“When I started at The Avenue, I didn’t know one drink from the other,” she said. “You couldn’t tell me what was what. So, when I had to wait on my customers and ask them what they wanted, I said, ‘ok, but when I bring them back, you tell me what’s what and who gets what.’ They came every weekend for me, I had regular customers”
Ciafardini said she was also an entertainer at The Avenue. She would walk around and sing, go around to the tables, and hit the “old men” on top of their heads.
“I just sat at the bar and entertained the guys,” she said.
Her partner for nearly 40 years, Don Hall, worked with her as a bouncer at The Avenue. They met in the late 60s and were together until he died in 2009.
Ciafardini also worked at places like Ted’s and LaRosa’s in downtown Cincinnati.
“She never had her license,” her daughter, Decca Buechel, said. “She walked everywhere and took the bus, and I think that’s a part of why she lived to be 100.”
For much of her life, Ciafardini lived in Dayton. One of her favorite activities was going to Tacoma Pool in town. Buechel said the family had passes to the pool and practically lived there every summer.
Aside from Dayton, Ciafardini has lived in Alexandria and Highland Heights.
“My favorite [memory] was when I was in grade school. Don and grandma would pick me and my cousin Laura up and would just call them and say, ‘Can we come swimming?’” Ciafardini’s granddaughter, Stacey Ridpath, said. “And when we were done swimming, we’d go to Frisch’s. She’d always take us to dinner before we went home.”
While living in her condo in Highland Heights, Angela Spaulding said she visited her grandma every day on her lunch break while attending Northern Kentucky University.
“I would go for lunch, and my favorite part is listening to her stories and our conversations and always just aggravating her,” she said.
Ciafardini is also an avid sports fan. Her teams are the Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Steelers- to her granddaughter’s dismay.
Ciafardini’s granddaughter Annie Spaulding said one of her favorite memories with her grandma was taking her to the Bengals vs. Steelers game at Paul Brown Stadium on Nov. 21, 2004, as her 80th birthday gift.
She grew up listening to Reds’ games on the radio because she didn’t have cable. Ciafardini got into the Steelers football team after watching Terry Bradshaw play.
“He was a young quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he was great,” Ciafardini said. “He was good, and that’s when I became a Pittsburgh Steelers fan.”
Ciafardini also likes to go to the racetrack at Turfway Park. Hall got her interested in the racetrack. Buechel said all the grandkids would go to Ciafardini and ask her who to bet on because she studied the jockeys. She gives the grandkids or even her great-grandkids singles to make a bet.
“We always went to the racetrack, starting when I was like 20,” said Bridget Donovan, Ciafardini’s granddaughter. “We’d go every weekend to Turfway or River Downs.”
Ciafardini has 12 grandchildren, 33 great-grandchildren and eight great-great-grandchildren.
“When she worked at The Avenue, there was a lot of gambling around that time,” her granddaughter Angela Spaulding said. “Legal and illegal.”
Ciafardini also liked to go out dancing, her favorite dance being the jitterbug. She would also go bowling and didn’t hesitate to remember that her bowling average was 125.
Aside from Ciafardini walking everywhere, which Buechel said she thinks kept her mom young, she said her mother also swears on olive oil, which she puts in her bathwater and eats a lot of garlic.
Buechel said her mom was never a smoker and was not much of a drinker except for the occasional glass of wine.
Though Ciafardini never got her license, for Buechel’s 16th birthday in 1971, she bought her daughter her first car.
“It was a white convertible Mustang,” Buechel said. “She didn’t have her license, so the purpose of me getting this car was to take her to the laundromat-that lasted a week. But I loved that car.”
Buechel said she never thought her mom would see 100. She said Ciafardini had pancreatitis four times and almost died in the hospital twice. She has broken both of her hips-the most recent time being only two years ago.
Her granddaughters all recall how she would have the family over for dinners until she was about 95, cooking things like spaghetti and meatballs, kale and ham, and liver and onions.
They said the things they admire most about their grandma are her strength, generosity, sense of humor, and ability to be the life of the party.
Sitting in Ciafardini’s living room surrounded by her daughter and granddaughters, the women all joked with one another. They said Ciafardini was looking for a man to drive her around.
Her granddaughters told Ciafardini, “That’s how we’re ending the article. If you would like to go on a date with ‘Nita,’ call—”
Ciafardini cut them off with a drawn-out “No” while shaking her hands furiously.
