The champagne flute was in front of Gloria DiFolco, its tiny bubbles magically rising. It was untouched, not that Gloria doesn’t drink champagne. With so many people around and all of them wanting to wish her happy birthday and share stories, she just didn’t have time.

It was Saturday and technically Gloria’s birthday is on Christmas Eve, so the party held at Halcyon at West Bay assisted living where Gloria now lives was a day early. She confided during a break from the DJ and stream of well wishers, “I’m not a party girl.” But that was hard to tell. She wore a tiara and sash and ready smile.

Gloria was born on Dec. 24, 1923, which makes her 100.

Lisa, the youngest of two daughters, welcomed the gathering listing some of her mother’s qualities from having a better memory than she, eating more and overall being healthier than she.

“We’re all blessed to have my mother here,” she said.

As Gloria met her admirers, Lisa filled in some of the details. She said her mother loved to cook and bake. She was a great provider who held the home together while her father, Domenic who for some unknown reason  went by the nickname “Richard” was often traveling for Narragansett Brewery. Gloria has always loved being near the water. They would spent summers in Highland Beach in Warwick and then at Bonnet Shores where they were members.

In 1963, Narragansett Brewery transferred Richard to their office in New Jersey. The family moved from a house on Lakeside Avenue behind DiFolco Funeral Home (now Trainor) and run by the family to New Jersey. They didn’t stay for long, however. After ten months, Richard was back at the Brewery in Cranston and the family bought a newly built home on Welch Road off Church Avenue in Warwick.

“It was all woods,” Gloria remembers of the neighborhood were she lived for 60 years. She loved it for its convenience, the schools and the “wonderful neighbors.”

What does she think of all the changes to Warwick since then?

“That’s a good question,” she said pausing to reflect.  She was interrupted by one of the guests who wished her happy birthday and took her off on another story.

A couple of minutes later she returned to the question, obviously having pondered her answer during the distraction.

“To me it has changed for the better,” she said. She cited the convenience of the city.

Does she miss the kitchen? Gloria was ambivalent although she remembered baking cakes and butter balls as this time of years.

“They said my butter balls were the best,” she said, adding that she wondered if that was flattery and she was getting buttered up. Her daughter, Patricia, assures that indeed the butterballs are the best now that her sister Lisa is making them using the recipe.

Patricia said they have always been a close knit family and every Sunday they would get together with their uncle Frank and aunt Marie.  She remembers waking up on Sunday to the sweet smell of meatballs stewing in a rich tomato sauce. She would take some bread and dip it in the sauce for breakfast, leaving the meatballs to be served later in the day.

And what about having a birthday the day before Christmas? As a kid did Gloria feel she had gotten the short end of the stick?

“It was not my fault,” she replied. But, she added her parents always had two gifts for her: one for her birthday and a second for Christmas.

“My parents were very caring and loving.”

How she met Richard is another story. Between the music and the visitors, she related how she was a member of a women’s club that met at the Italo-American Club in Providence. They were upstairs at the club in their meeting when her first cousin, John O. Pastore, who went on to be elected U.S. Senator, was downstairs with another group playing cards. One of them was Richard, who had a pair of tickets to the Ice Capades, but no date. Pastore suggested they go upstairs and see if Richard could find a date. Richard asked Gloria.

“We dated for five years and then decided to get married,” Gloria declares as a matter of fact.

Before they were married, Gloria worked at Columbus National Bank in Providence. But once married, she became a homemaker.

It suits her well even today.

She enjoyed being the center of activity, posing for selfies and blowing out the single candle on a cupcake presented by Johanna Schiffer, director of life enrichment at Halcyon before a large sheet cake appeared and the room broke into a chorus of happy birthday.