Francis DiMento, who is 99½, came to Monday’s celebration of Brookline’s oldest residents with one goal.
“I’d like to meet some people who are older than me,” said DiMento, a Brighton native and Navy veteran of World War II who is a lawyer and still works on cases with other attorneys. He no longer goes to court.
“I might forget the witness’s name,” he joked.
DiMento said he grew up a short walk across Commonwealth Avenue from his future wife, Rita, a Brookline girl to whom he was married for 64 years.
She has died, but he said he still talks to her “all day long.” His advice to other men: When you get home, “give her an extra hug.”
“When she’s gone, you’re done,” he said.
DiMento, who’ll turn 100 in March, was one of five honorees recognized in person at “Party of a Century,” held Monday at the Brookline Senior Center and hosted by the town’s Council on Aging.
Although the program booklet listed 27 centenarian honorees, only five were in attendance. Other honorees’ names were read aloud.
The afternoon featured local jazz band The Winikers, a toast and a round of “Happy Birthday” for the room. It also marked the town’s first centenarian celebration since 2019, said Emily Williams, director of the Council on Aging and Senior Center. The center paused the event during the pandemic, when the building was closed.
“It breaks down a lot of bias, a lot of ageism that’s in the world, when you honor your elders instead of viewing them as not contributing,” Williams said.
As a town department, she said, the center serves residents 60 and older with lunches, activities and clinical social workers who connect families to resources. Part of its work, she said, is fighting the loneliness and isolation that can come with aging.
Michael Rubenstein, vice chair of the Select Board, read a proclamation declaring Oct. 19, 2026, “Party of a Century Day” in Brookline.
The proclamation calls older adults “an essential and valued part of our community” and describes Brookline as the first age-friendly community in New England.
The proclamation also revives a New England custom.
In 1909, Boston Post publisher Edwin Grozier sent gold-headed ebony canes to the selectmen of about 700 towns, to be presented to each town’s oldest man. Women became eligible in 1930. Organizers said Brookline is the 547th town in New England to bring the tradition back.
Brookline has not yet identified its oldest resident, so the cane was not presented to an individual. A replica was displayed at the event as a symbolic honor for all of the town’s centenarians.
Judith Juster, 102, lives in supportive senior housing next to the senior center. She moved to Brookline about 15 years ago from New York to be near her daughter in Lexington.
“I’m the only one of my generation alive,” she said.
Juster said she had been warned the party would be full of wheelchairs. “I was told everybody would be in wheelchairs,” she said. “I don’t see any.”
Tammy Sadok, director of social services at Hebrew SeniorLife, who has known Juster for about 10 years, said Juster has two daughters, several grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, and attends programs faithfully despite trouble with her vision and hearing.
Jayantilal Doshi, who turned 100 in August, was born in India in 1926, under British rule. His daughter, Sucheta Doshi, said he practiced law and worked in commerce there before coming to the United States in the 1960s.
He and his wife have lived in Brookline for 50 years, and both now live with their daughter. At 86, she said, he climbed the steps of the Parthenon in Greece. The family held a large party for his 100th birthday in August.
Hugh Caplan, 95, who has lived in Brookline for about 15 years after six decades in Wellesley, said he was invited by event organizers. An internist who specializes in rheumatology, he still practices at Newton-Wellesley Hospital and is a professor at Tufts.
“Hopefully, I’ll make 100!” he said.