MOUNTAIN TOP, LUZERNE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — As if turning 100 isn’t impressive enough. Helen Jane Baroody has an even more impressive connection to history. Her daughter claims she sent a historic telegraph back in 1945.
“Franklin Delano Roosevelt died. She sent the communication out to Nova Scotia that he died,” Toni Dutko, Helen Jane Baroody’s daughter, said.
The Mountain Top Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center threw Helen Jane Baroody, better known as Jane, a centennial celebration.
“Very nice. Very nice that they thought of like that,” Jane Baroody said.
“I asked her today, I said ‘How you feel to be 100’ and she said ‘I don’t know how I became 100.’,” Dutko said.
Jane was born in Celina, Ohio in 1920.
“She lived a very good life. She used to walk, when we were small she walked a lot. Drank a lot of coke. That was her main thing she liked to drink her coke, every day. She drank lots of coke,” Dutko said.
Jane and her sister enlisted in the Navy during World War II. She was stationed in Washington D.C. as a telegrapher.
Jane’s day became even more special when she received two certificates to commemorate her birthday. One was from the u.S. Navy and the other was from Representative Gerald Mullery.
“She didn’t really know that she was going to get anything but she was very happy. She loves the U.S. Navy document. She was very proud of being in the Navy,” Dutko said.
Jane married a marine and left the Navy in 1945. She moved with her husband to Wilkes-Barre. She and her family then built a home in Kingston. Her family tells me most of her photographs and belongings from earlier in her life were destroyed in the Agnes Flood of 1972. After her husband’s death, Jane moved to Mountain Top.
“good and bad during the years. And so far it’s really… Happiness… Good health and happiness,” Baroody said.
