NAHANT — As roughly 50 seniors dined on a full Thanksgiving turkey lunch Tuesday morning at Town Hall’s Tiffany Room, they were greeted by 104-year-old World War II veteran Virginia Fiske.
Although she now resides in Chelsea, Fiske spent more than 50 years living in her Nahant home on Karolyn Circle. Surrounded by friends and family, Fiske returned to the Council on Aging for the Thanksgiving lunch after a roughly two-year hiatus.
Fiske, speaking just a few weeks before her 105th birthday, said she recently renewed her driver’s license.
“This year, I’m thankful for my friends, family, and my health,” Fiske said.
Raised in Everett, Fiske spent nearly every summer at her family’s beach home in Nahant before moving to the town in 1961.
Fiske enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps when she was 24 in 1942.
“Some of the servicepeople found out my information. They called me, and I said yes, I would go along with it,” Fiske said in a 2020 interview with The Daily Item. “At the beginning of my service I was working in the Everett National Bank, and then when I retired from the army I went back to the bank for a couple of years and that was it.”
Nahant Council on Aging Executive Director Mary Miner said she was pleased with the turnout for this year’s lunch. She said some seniors stopped by the Council on Aging’s center to look for something and wound up staying for the meal.
“This is a really special event,” Miner said. “This gives everybody a chance to come together and to break bread and be part of the community in a different way. We’re glad for that.”
