By David F. Rooney
The Beruschi family and its many friends gathered at the Regent Hotel Saturday to celebrate matriarch Kay Beruschi’s 100th birthday.
“I think she’s a remarkable woman,” said her daughter Jane. “Everyone loved her. She lost her own mother when she was four years old, yet… she was a wonderful mother and an amazing cook. She’d bake a banana cream pie every day and make Dungeness carb sandwiches for lunch then have supper ready by 3. She was a super person.”
Certainly, all of the nearly 100 people who attended a 1:30 pm celebration agreed.
“She was the Beruschi family’s glue,” said City Councillor and nurse Linda Nixon who, for a while, cared for Kay. “She really pulled that family together.”
Unfortunately, she could not be present for the public, afternoon party held in the River City Pub.
“Kay has a touch of pneumonia,” her son, Freddy, told the crowd. “Thanks for coming. I know Kay would love to be here… but it would have been tough to bring her here today.”
However, Kay did perk up enough to make it down for a brief appearance before a family dinner in the Begbie Room where she was warmly greeted by the youngest members of the Beruschi family.
Always a remarkable woman, as a centenarian Kay Beruschi now belongs to a pretty exclusive club. There are only 56,000 centenarians out of Canada’s 33 million people and 200,000 out of the six billion people on the planet.
Happy birthday, Kay.
