Centenarian takes life in stride

Intermountain Catholic

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Eleanor Piacitelli (Nora) Dalpiaz

TOOELE — Eleanor Piacitelli (Nora) Dalpiaz is 100 years old.

Dalpiaz celebrated her 100th birthday on Sept. 30, 2011. She was a long time resident of Helper but moved to Tooele about three years ago to live in a grandmother’s apartment in her granddaughter’s home, and is now a member of Saint Marguerite Parish.

She has lived through two world wars, the Great Depression, in homes without plumbing, in a world of ongoing technology and through it all has taken it in stride. "I think that is how I got to be this old; I just took everything a day at a time and went from year to year," she said.

Dalpiaz was an active member of Saint Anthony of Padua Parish from 1938 until 2008. She was in the choir for 60 years, even serving as choir director, coordinating music for all celebrations. She was in the Altar Society and served as secretary. She and her husband chaired the parish carnival many times as well as the DDD Drive until his death in 1996. She was the St. Anthony’s Woman of the Year in 2008.

Dalpiaz was born in Majestic, Colo., in 1911, the third in a family of eight. She moved to Utah with her family when she was 5 years old. "We came to Utah on the train, but to catch the train we had to take a horse-drawn cart," she said. "My mother sat us in our seat and we had to stay there all the way to Utah, and I felt like I was riding backward. We lived in a coal camp in Sunnyside until I was in the third grade. Sunnyside was a mining town.

"While we were there, the 1918 influenza epidemic broke out and every day a funeral procession would pass by our house," Dalpiaz said. "In those days people walked and the casket was carried on a horse-drawn cart. It felt pretty scary. My sister, Florence, got the flu and was in bed for a long time. My older sister and I had a small case of it, but we didn’t let on because we had to take care of the family because my mom had her hands full and wasn’t feeling well either at the time."

Dalpiaz’s father worked as a mechanic until the United Mine Workers went on strike in 1919 and lasted until 1928. "We weren’t poor, but we were thrifty," she said. "Our highlights were reading the funnies in the newspaper and listening to the radio."

"There wasn’t a priest in Sunnyside, so Monsignor (Alfred F.) Giovannoni, who served Carbon County, would come up to the camp on special occasions," said Dalpiaz. "My parents sent my oldest sister to Saint Mary’s Academy in Salt Lake and that’s when I was in the sixth grade and five of us were baptized. It’s also when we moved to Price across the street from Notre Dame Church."

Dalpiaz graduated from Carbon High School and worked as a waitress at Rinetti and Capitalo Restaurant for three years before entering Holy Cross School of Nursing. She graduated in 1937 and returned to Price. She met Frank Dalpiaz at a church carnival. He proposed to her at Saltair and they were married in 1938. They had two children and she continued her career as a nurse working for Holy Cross Hospital in Salt Lake City while Frank was in the U.S. Navy. She worked at Carbon Hospital after his discharge and returned to Helper. Later she worked in a private doctor’s office and retired after working for three years in a nursing home in Price. She was a member of the Carbon County Catholic Nurses Association for many years.

She has five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, and is still able to get down on the floor to play with them.