Bangor woman marks her 100th birthday

One day last week, Phyllis Hand was looking over her birth certificate with her son when the significance of the date handwritten on the paper finally hit home.

March 19, 1908.

“She said, ‘Oh my God! I’m reading about a 100-year-old person and it’s me!'” Bud Hand, the 76-year-old son, recounted with a laugh.

On Saturday, Phyllis Hand was surrounded by about 100 of her closest family and friends who gathered at Jeff’s Catering to help the Bangor resident celebrate her 100th birthday.

But it would have been difficult for an outsider to pick out the birthday girl from the crowd. That’s because she barely looked a day over 70, much less three days past a century. Although perhaps a bit slower than a few decades ago, Hand was still light enough on her feet to take a few spins around the dance floor with her sons.

In an interview, Hand said she was “flabbergasted” by the size of the party thrown by her four boys.

“I think it’s wonderful. I didn’t really know I knew so many people. But I guess I do, because they all came,” she added with a smile.

Born in Boston, Hand first came to central Maine in 1927 to visit her mother, who had moved to Carmel. While staying with her mother, she struck up a friendship with a neighborhood man named Reid Hand.

After Phyllis returned to Boston to work, Reid Hand wrote her a letter telling her how much he enjoyed her company and asking to see her again if she ever returned to Maine. She eventually did return, but this time for good and the two were married in 1929, according to Bud Hand.

The couple had five boys -four of them in four years. The family ran a dance hall in an old schoolhouse in Carmel for a while, and Reid Hand, who was an avid musician, helped provide the entertainment at the popular Auto Rest Park in Carmel.

The family later moved to Bangor.

Asked whether she had any tips for staying young, Phyllis Hand shrugged and claimed she didn’t know any secrets. She said she stays active by going shopping and to lunch with friends and family.

Surrounded by four generations of her family, Phyllis Hand said her four surviving boys – Bud, Ralph, Robert and Richard – had told her they were planning something for her 100th birthday. She said she was delighted by the formal party, which included a band, buffet and bar. Her four boys even dressed in tuxedos and picked her up in a limousine.

“They just said it was going to be a big bash,” Hand said. “It’s wonderful.”

“We decided around Christmastime that we should do something,” Bud Hand said. “Nothing like this has ever happened before in her family or in the whole Hand family.”

kmiller@bangordailynews.net

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