A 100th Birthday And A Family Reunion Brings Back Memories For One Sunset Park Family

Happy 100th birthday, Isabel Espinal!

In the annals of reasons to hold a massive family reunion of hundreds of people from across the country, a 100th birthday party for the family matriarch is one of the best. And that is what happened this past weekend for the extended Espinal family — all 135+ of them, returning to Mamá Isabel’s 59th Street home and to neighboring Widdi Catering Hall to celebrate and dance with her.

“She held up at her party until 12am,” chuckled granddaughter Patricia Peralta. “She was in good spirits, but isn’t very mobile. She did toasts and champagne, her grandkids danced with her in her wheelchair on the dance floor, and her priest from Our Lady of Perpetual Help came to bless her. She never had a real wedding or party, so she originally [thought she would] go to bed [early], but stayed because it meant so much to her to have the whole family — our first family reunion — there for her.”

Peralta is one of 35 grandchildren of Espinal’s; the grandmother is actually also a great great grandmother: she has 9 children, 35 grandchildren, 70 great grandchildren, and 29 great great grandchildren — all of whom living legacies to her kindness, devotion to family and her religion, and her stories.

“It’s amazing to have her and to have her tell her stories. It’s a blessing,” said Peralta.

Espinal was born on April 12, 1915 as Isabel Argentina Rodriguez Turca in Santiago, Dominican Republic, in a suburb called “Boca de Los Rios.” At age 20, she married Rafael David Espinal Perez and moved to Baitoa before immigrating to Sunset Park, living in a house on 43rd Street and working at a factory on Third Avenue ironing clothes until leg problems led her to quit and become the nanny of the family. Then, in the early 90s, after her husband died, she moved in with one of her daughters, Peralta’s mother.

“We’re a very close knit family. She’s extremely religious and is a parishioner at OLPH; they now come to her, giving her communion at home for the past five years, and she’s part of Daughters of Mary,” said Peralta. “She watches a lot of TV — she loves telenovelas — and does rosary three times a day, but she’s in good spirits considering her health has fallen in past three months.

“She remembers seeing the first car in the DR — decades after it was in the U.S.,” her granddaughter noted. “She’d ride donkey to river to wash laundry. It was an entirely different time. When you hear it, it’s amazing. When someone comes in, she wants to feed them. She’s very old-school, never cut her hair, never wore pants.

“We’ll take a selfie and she’ll be like what’s that? She’ll look at the picture and go wow, we just took it! So to have an instant thing was something you could never have when she was growing up.”

Again, happy birthday, Isabel and we’re so glad you’re our neighbor!