By Anna Gustafson
When Fresh Meadows resident Lena Koblentz is asked how she has lived a vibrant life for nearly a century, she laughs.
“People always want to know my secret, to which I say, ‘Who reveals a secret like that?’” said Koblentz, who will turn 100 July 23.
U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Forest Hills) honored the Fresh Meadows woman last week with a proclamation for her 100th birthday and lavished compliments on Koblentz, who he said is an inspiration for anyone who hopes to become an intellectually stimulated, active centenarian.
“I very rarely get to commemorate 100 years of anything, so this is very special,” Weiner said.
The congressman said he was thrilled to meet Koblentz, a former school teacher and artist who was written about in an article on “the science of living longer” in Time Magazine last winter.
“You look amazing,” Weiner said. “You must have the guys buzzing around you like flies around honey.”
When she looks back upon the past 100 years, it is almost too overwhelming to describe, Koblentz said. After all, how is it possible to describe the personal triumphs and tragedies that come in a century?
Still, Koblentz can pinpoint the big highlights of her life as being blessed with two children and bounds of artistic talent.
She was born July 23, 1910, in lower Manhattan to Russian immigrants who strived to make a better life for their daughter and son in a new country. Her father lived on a cot in a New York City kitchen while saving money to bring his wife over from Warsaw.
“We had no money, but my mother always had a pair of diamond earrings,” Koblentz said. “You’d say, ‘Well, she has no money but wears diamonds?’ But those diamond earrings were things that saved our lives. If she had to buy a pair of shoes, she’d go to the pawn brokers, which were on every block then, and give them the earrings.”
Koblentz moved to Fresh Meadows with her husband when World War II ended, after they had lived for several years in Illinois while her husband finished medical school.
“Because my husband was a doctor, we were able to get a telephone immediately when we moved to Fresh Meadows,” Koblentz said.
A committed family woman, Koblentz raised a daughter and a son in addition to being a painter, a children’s book author and illustrator and a teacher who taught in a school on the border of Queens and Nassau County. She has painted a countless number of works, many of which are hung up all over her apartment.
“Art has always been important to me,” she said. “When I was little, our fridge was covered with all my pictures. My mother hated throwing away anything I did.”
Her son, Daniel, is now a psychiatrist in Manhattan and her daughter, Sara, is an artist who lives near Syracuse.
Reach reporter Anna Gustafson by e-mail at agustafson@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
