The Peterborough Recreation Department hosted a 100th birthday celebration for Jackie Hill of Hancock on Wednesday morning at the Peterborough Community Center.
“She’s just amazing,” said Gloria Schultz of the Peterborough Recreation Department, who organized the celebration. “She’s as sharp as a tack, and she’s full of energy.”
Members of Hill’s regular bingo group, friends, longtime neighbors from Hancock, and staff from the Peterborough Recreation Department celebrated Hill with cake, custom bingo cards, gifts and and song.
“Jackie is really incredible; she just stays active, every day, ” said Jean Perullo of Peterborough. “We all know her from bingo and from mahong and cribbage.”
Hill’s bingo group gifted her with a $100 bill, which Hill pretended to kiss, and 100 chocolate Hershey’s Kisses.
“She’s an absolute riot; she’s always the life of the party,” said friend Susan Crowley.
Hill, who grew up in Greenville, remembers her father working as a pressman for the Peterborough Transcript.
“He was there 25 years, and we knew a lot of people from the paper, ” she said.
Hill has lived in Hancock since 1946, when she married her husband, Paul Hill. The couple rented a house on Main Street.
“I didn’t know how to drive,” Hill recalled. “I had to depend on a neighbor, Lillian Schaefer, to take me places. Finally I said, ‘I better get my license,’ and my husband said, ‘it’s time.'”
After a few years, the Hills saved up enough for their own home a little ways out of town.
“In 1952, my husband changed jobs, we had a baby, and we bought a house,” Hill said. “All in one year.”
Hill still lives independently in the very same home, with frequent visits from her two daughters, who both live in New Hampshire.
“I don’t like being 100 all the time,” Hill joked.
When asked how she feels about turning 100, Hill said the only thing she wishes for is “good health.”
“For everyone,” she said. “That’s my wish.”