A New Year’s baby, born 100 years ago

KENT — Virginia Conboy was born on Jan. 1, 1913, in Yonkers, N.Y. On Jan. 1, 2013, she celebrated her 100th birthday at a party held in her honor at the Kent Senior Center. Conboy has been a Kent resident for about 50 years. She moved to Litchfield County with her husband, Irving (who died in 1998, in his 90s).A private party was also held on New Year’s Eve for Conboy and a family party was planned.Conboy is matriarch of a large family. She has three children, eight grandchildren, 10 great grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren. First Selectman Bruce Adams and state Sen. Clark Chapin (R-30) both spoke about Conboy at the community party and extended birthday wishes on behalf of their respective constituencies.Chapin presented Conboy with a souvenir postcard used in his first political campaign to become a state representative in 2000. The card features an 88-year-old Conboy, posing for the picture with the candidate.Chapin also presented the honoree with a framed citation from the Connecticut General Assembly in honor of her birthday.Conboy’s granddaughter, Cornwall resident Alicia North, said, “My grandmother drove her car until she was 95 years old. In fact, the family had a good laugh recently, when she received a drivers license renewal application in the mail. “She is not,” she added, “renewing her license.” North said Conboy has been married twice. Her son Richard Pedersen lives in Buffalo, N.Y.; her son Jeffrey Conboy lives in Goshen; and her daughter, Dianne Conboy, resides in Arizona.“My grandmother has always been an active person, volunteering on many committees and organizations,” North said. “She was on the Kent Republican Town Committee. She was active in the Kent branch of the Sharon Hospital Auxiliary, the Kent Chamber of Commerce and the Kent Nursing Association. She volunteered with several groups in New Milford.” She also volunteered at the Kent Center School cafeteria and was a member of the Kent Singers.When Conboy and her husband moved to Kent 50 years ago, they purchased Saddle Ridge Farm and lived in the original farmhouse until 1980. The Conboys sold their land to a developer who subdivided the land on the hill into home sites.According to Kent real estate broker David Bain, the land on Route 7, in front of the Saddle Ridge home subdivision on a hill, is still called Conboy Flats.Conboy now lives in a senior apartment at Templeton Farms, Kent’s senior housing project. She was on the first board of trustees of Templeton Farms, when it was planned and built.North said her grandmother also worked as a real estate agent in Kent. “She sold Dolph and Audrey Traymon the building where the Fife ’n Drum restaurant is; it has been owned and operated by the Traymons for decades.”North presented her grandmother a birthday cake with three number candles on top: a one and two zeroes.