Riding into 100

When Ann Soscia lowered the microphone to her father-in-law, Anthony, to ask his advice on living a long life, he provided a short, simple response.

“Don’t worry about nothing.”

It was a fitting answer for Anthony Soscia, who was celebrating his 100th birthday on Saturday with more than 70 family members and relatives at Richard’s Pub in East Greenwich. Soscia, who said he felt “nowhere near 100,” pursued his passion until he was 97.

He worked in textiles, but he truly felt at home when he was in the fields of his farms.

“My grandpa has had many conversations over his lifetime, and I said to him, ‘Grandpa, what’s the key to living a long life?” granddaughter Jennifer Carulli, 37, said of Soscia, who lived in Cranston nearly all his life. “He always said, ‘Do what you love, love what you do.’ He truly has done what he’s loved.”

Soscia worked every day on his farms across Cranston, from his home on Phenix Avenue to plots in the Pippin Orchard and Cornell and Whiting Street areas, before surgery forced him into the Roberts Health Center in North Kingstown. Up until that point, he was getting into the bucket of his tractor every day at 5 a.m.

His youngest son, Ken Soscia, 60, recalled there was a time when he doesn’t remember seeing his father because of his hectic work schedule. He would return home from his job at the Cranston Print Works and take to the soil.

Practically nothing could keep Anthony Soscia off of his farm. Even three decades ago when he was hit on the head and shoulder with a falling tree limb while several feet in the air. Had he fallen from the tractor, he may have died.

One week of bed rest later, Soscia was back to work tending to his crops.

“He’d come home from work and go to the farm,” Kathy Soscia, his only daughter, said. “I’d say, ‘Dad, don’t you want to travel? Go to Martha’s Vineyard? Florida?’ He’d say the same thing.”

Despite all of the toiling he did, vacation was never a goal for Anthony Soscia.

His famous retort to mostly every travel request was echoed by various relatives at the party: He argued that if the grass was green and the sky was blue there, as it was in Cranston, that he didn’t need to go there.

Several described him as a man of simple pleasures, leaning on faith and family to live a care-free lifestyle. He raised four children, and now is surrounded by seven grandchildren and seven great grandchildren. His eighth great grandchild is due in the summer.

“He would just say yes to everyone because he always saw the good in everyone,” Ken Soscia said. “He would always help everybody, give things to everybody.”

“He’s a very simple man, he doesn’t want for much,” Kathy Soscia added. “He never gets mad. He’s just so easygoing. He’s a religious man. When he was home, he used to drive to church every Sunday to go to mass. Farming was his love.”

Soscia knew how to show his love to others as well. After his wife passed away more than 20 years ago, Carulli said he used visit her just about every day at the cemetery. He would see the same people going to pay their respects at other sites as well, which gave him an idea.

“He loved to give away the produce he grew on the farm,” Carulli said. “Everything he grew, he didn’t want to see it. He just wanted to give it away. He made all these friends at the cemetery, so he would stack his car filled with tomatoes and peppers and whatever he grew, and he’d bring it to the cemetery to pass it out to the people he met. If he didn’t see his friends there, he would make little bags and leave them at the graves at the cemetery.”

This brought about an affectionate nickname for Soscia.

“I used to call him the ‘Farm Fairy’ because these people would come visit and they would see a little bag of produce next to the grave of their loved ones.”

Ken’s girlfriend, Barbara Cole, recalled an especially poignant encounter with Anthony Soscia eight years ago. She said that he brought her to tears when he told her that he would “love it” if he could die on his farm.

“When I met [Anthony] he was 92, still on the farm with his cane,” Cole, who lost her father in 2006 said, fighting back tears. “He said to me, ‘Oh, no, I made you cry!’ I told him, ‘That’s ok.’ As we were leaving, he said ‘I love you.’ He says ‘I love you’ to everybody. He’s so sweet.”

Soscia has practiced what he preached, spending every moment doing what he loves with whom he loves.

“He was happy on the farm,” his son, Ron, said. “He was forced to work in textiles because he couldn’t raise his family on the farm. He said, ‘God will provide’ and he never worried about money. He’s a remarkable example.”

“My grandpa has many, many values, but he values the important things in life,” Carulli said. “He values family, doing what you love, he was never a materialistic person. Honesty, kindness, compassion. My grandpa is all about family first and God is truly the center of his life.”