Dottie Genoni, a Jersey girl with over a century of memories

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — The other day, Bloomfield resident Constance “Dottie” Genoni was sitting in the backyard of her Foster Street neighbor, Eileen Rush. She and Eileen were having a discussion about their joint birthday party next week: Was Dottie planning a swim in Rush’s pool to mark the occasion?

Dottie didn’t think so. She said that although there are two bathing suits in her hope chest, that’s where they’ll stay.

“Years ago, there were no pools,” Dottie said. “A lot of ice cream parlors, but no swimming pools.”

Kids ask her what did she do for fun growing up. It’s only natural. No swimming pools, no TVs, no cars, no telephones. In fact, when Dottie was born, there wasn’t even a World War I yet. This coming Tuesday, Aug. 30, she is going to be 103 years old. If she’s not the oldest resident in Bloomfield, she’s one of them.

So what did she do for fun growing up?
“I went to work at 15,” she said. “I became a spanner. I was experienced because my mother had a friend with a handkerchief machine.”

Dottie will tell you a spanner is someone who frames a handkerchief so that it can be embroidered. The handkerchiefs she spanned were made of linen and from Sweden.
“They were very popular in my time,” she said. “I lost a lot of time growing up as a kid because of work.”

Her parents were from Italy. Dottie was born in Clifton in 1913 and delivered by a midwife. She spoke a little about her early years. She had a twin sister, Antoinette.
“My father had two cradles,” Dottie said. “I was on my father’s side of the bed. Antoinette was on my mother’s side. I began to cry and my mother woke up. But the other wasn’t crying. She was dead. I’m probably living for her.”

She recalled the death of another relative. But this time, it brought a baby into the family.

Dottie had three sisters and one brother. One sister was Rose.
“She happened to be my mother’s niece,” she said of Rose. “After a week, her mother died of childbirth.”

Dottie was 11 at the time. A midwife had given her money to go to the movies.
“But when I got to the movie theater, something told me to go home,” she said “And I went home.”

When she returned, there was a crowd of people in the house.
“I snuck through them,” Dottie said.
She saw Theresa in bed holding her baby.

“She couldn’t talk but she was pointing at her child and she died,” Dottie said.
But the baby’s father did not want his daughter. He wanted to put her into an orphanage.

“My father said ‘no way,’” Dottie said
So her family took the child in and Dottie had a new sister.
“Her father never called,” Dottie said. “He went to California.”

Dottie lived in Clifton and Jersey City, and again in Clifton, as a youngster and adult. She first met her future husband, Louis, when she was 15. Their mothers were from the same town in Italy. Dottie said there wasn’t anything special about meeting Louis. But when they met the second time, there was. She was 19.

“It was different,” Dottie said.
They began a courtship. On one date, they took an airplane ride. This was in 1932.
“My husband had a friend who had an open-seater airplane in Totowa,” she said.
Dottie said the pilot sat in the front and she and Louis sat together behind him and went flying.

“That was a date?” Eileen said. “That is some date.”
And there were others, at Palisades Park and the movies. One time they went to the Rustic Cabin, a Englewood Cliffs nightspot that had a singing waiter. The Paul Whiteman Orchestra was playing.

“I was on a date at the Rustic Cabin,” Dottie recalled. “This waiter came around with this towel. The band stopped and the emcee said we were going to have a great singer.”
Dottie said her waiter turned out to be the singer. He was introduced as Frank Sinatra.
“He was a little, skinny guy and sang beautifully,” she said. “My husband said ‘That guy’s going places.’”

Dottie was 21 when she married.
“I couldn’t wait to get married,” she said. “Louis was such a nice guy and very sociable. He could draw a crowd around himself and he said a lot of jokes.”
Louis was a truck mechanic.

“When we moved here, everyone wanted him to fix their cars,” she said. “He never said no.”

They moved to Bloomfield 60 years ago this coming Sept. 1, two days after Dottie’s 43rd birthday.

“When I moved here, a bank in the center of Bloomfield was asking for help,” she said. “I didn’t know a thing about banking but I applied. Wouldn’t you know it, they picked me up.”

The bank was Midlantic and it was located on Broad Street.
“I worked there 32 years,” she said. “It was the best job I ever had. Bloomfield Center, where the bank was, was beautiful. They had beautiful stores.”

Dottie worked those 32 years over two different time periods. First she worked for 17 years, and retired. Four years after her retirement, Louis died and she went back to work at the bank. She remained for another 15 years.

“I was a good worker,” she said. “I never went around and socialized with the girls. They liked that.”
She and Louis had no children.
“That’s the sad part,” she said. “Some have too many.”

But there was a neighbor who had children. At the age of 80, Dottie became a babysitter for two boys in the neighborhood. Their pictures are in her living room along with her family photographs.

“One of their uncles told me they are so nice because I had the bigger part of their lives,” she said. “Isn’t that nice?”

Eileen said Dottie has a nephew who comes to visit every several weeks. But Dottie admits to being lonely. She also said she has a special passion.

“I don’t like being alone,” she said. “My family is all gone. And my husband, his six brothers, they’re all gone. I’m lonely especially in the winter. I have my crocheting and I read a lot. I love to read my newspapers. I have to know what’s going on.”

Her passion is to go on a cruise. Eileen said they will go together. Dottie, who uses a cane to get around and needs help from place to place, said she doesn’t walk well enough anymore.

“My body changes from one day to the next,” she said.
And taking Eileen’s arm, she heads home with their birthday party planned.