St. Catherine parishioner becomes centenarian

Courtesy photo/Amber Schiavone

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Stella celebrates her birthday with her son, Joseph (left), and Dominican Father Carl Schlichte, pastor of Saint Catherine of Siena Newman Center. 

SALT LAKE CITY — Stella Vitulla Walkowski turned 100 on Jan. 7, and was honored at an "Ageless Achievers" birthday party at Saint Catherine of Siena Newman Center.

"It was a night to celebrate the elder members of our parish having birthdays," said Mickey Adelhardt, St. Catherine of Siena parishioner, who coordinated the party. "We honored those who are 80 and over with a Mass and a special blessing.

"We have celebrated Stella’s 90th, 95th and now her 100th birthday and she is still making sandwiches for Catholic Community Services evening meal," said Adelhardt. "Stella is feisty and famous for her deviled eggs. She is strong in her faith and a very gracious lady."

As soon as Walkowski arrived in Utah in 1990, she began volunteering at the Society for the Blind Library, Foster the Arts, Feed the Hungry Festival, Festival of Trees, and the retired Newcomers Club. She has been an active St. Catherine of Siena greeter at Mass, a member of the Caring Ministry and coordinator of parish volunteers for Saint Vincent de Paul Soup Kitchen. She also has volunteered in various capacities at the 10th East Senior Center. In recognition of her outstanding service, she was honored by the St. Catherine Women’s Council as the 2002 Woman of the Year.

Walkowski was born in 1913 in Pittsburgh, Penn., the seventh of nine children. As the only survivor of her eight siblings, she attributes her healthy aging to God and to her Italian father who lived to be 94, and to her maternal, Italian grandfather who lived to be 99.

"It’s God’s will that I’m still alive at 100. I wasn’t the healthiest of my siblings, but I outlived them all," Walkowski said. "My last sister died at 87 in 1990."

Walkowski is proud of her Italian immigrant grandparents who arrived in the United States with her mother as a toddler in 1882, she said. Because of the hardships immigrants experienced then, her parents insisted that their children receive a higher education. Her family also was dedicated to athletics, and she was a gymnast, ran track and played volleyball and basketball in high school.

"Two of my brothers were in college and my parents couldn’t afford to send me to school so I went to nursing school because the tuition was free and they paid me $15 a month to help with books," she said. "I graduated from nursing school in 1933 during the Depression. My family had a vegetable garden and we would help feed the neighbors; I remember the bread lines."

As a student nurse in 1930, she met Joseph Walkowski, an immunologist, who made his career as an officer in the U.S. Army Medical Service Corps. They married in 1937 and had one son, Joseph, Jr. Stella Walkowski went into private duty nursing and also worked for Pittsburgh Public Health, a communicable disease hospital, nursing patients during the polio epidemic.

"It was a frightening time because patients were in iron-lung machines," she said. "I loved nursing and learned the Sister Elizabeth Kenny procedure for treating polio patients with hot packs, which was scrubbing them on the afflicted areas with flannel cloths and very hot water. Sister Kenny was from the back country of Australia and established the Sister Kenny Institute in 1942."

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 brought the United States into World War II, Walkowski’s husband was recalled to active duty in the Army to serve in France and Germany. Walkowski remained at the municipal hospital in Pittsburgh and taught cadet nurses, where she was lauded for teaching large classes. In 1949, she joined her husband in Germany for three years.

Following World War II, they lived in Chicago, St. Louis, and Maryland, where her husband retired and died in 1973. She remained in Maryland until moving to Utah to be close to her son, who lives in Salt Lake City.