PANAMA CITY — One hundred pink and white roses brightened the room as Edie Sawicki and her family celebrated her 100th birthday Sunday.
Sawicki’s daughter, Joyce Muller, recalled one of her favorite memories with her mother. When she was a child growing up in Kenosha, Wis., Muller’s mother would bundle her up in her coat, hat and gloves every year at Christmas time and take her on the train to Chicago or Milwaukee to visit Gimbel’s Department Store.
“It was kind of scary, the train ride all alone. It always seemed like it took forever, but it really wasn’t far,” said Muller.
Born Nov. 4, 1914, Sawicki grew up “dirt poor” in Green Bay, Wis., Muller said. She was the oldest of five children and when her mother died when she was young, Sawicki had to drop out of high school to raise her sister and three brothers.
In 1937, she married Joe Sawicki. The two lived in Kenosha, Wis., where Joe was the city finance director and Edie raised Joyce with a strong understanding of the necessity of earning her education, Muller said.
“She was very strict. I couldn’t get away with anything,” Muller said.
Sawicki and her husband followed Muller around the country after she married an Air Force officer. The family lived in San Diego, Las Vegas, Montgomery, Ala., and Hawaii. Sawicki moved to Sun City Center in 1997 and eventually to Panama City after her husband died.
At Sunday’s party, wearing a smart black coat and purple scarf, Sawicki held court at Community Health and Rehabilitation Center, where she has lived for the past three years, as her daughter, grandchildren and several friends sang to her and shared memories. She smiled through it all, engaging with her admirers, kissing their hands when they came to greet her and asking her granddaughter, Valerie Reno, “How are you?”
She drank a glass of champagne and, with the help of a few friends who also have birthdays this week, blew out the candles on a large sheet cake covered in pink frosting flowers.
Sawicki’s grandson, Jeff Muller, considers his “Nonnie” someone to “look up to.”
“She was always a classy lady,” he said.