Maureen Smith / San Francisco Archdiocese
CV NEWS FEED // A San Francisco parish is sharing the remarkable stories of three beloved longtime parishioners, who all recently celebrated their 100th birthdays.
Rini Stefani, Mary Ann Robbiano, and Marion Moreno are proof that “faith, family, and friendship are keys to longevity,” according to an article based on the research of fellow parishioner, Pat Clough, who conducted extensive interviews with the three women.
Known affectionately as the “Golden Girls” of St Raymond Catholic Parish in Menlo Park, Stefani, Robbiano, and Moreno have sat side-by-side every Sunday at 10 a.m. Mass, together with their loved ones and caretakers, for more than 60 years.
Born in San Francisco in August 1923 to an Italian immigrant family, Stefani shared memories of rationed coffee and sugar and buying groceries with food stamps during the Great Depression.
“I always did what I had to do, and that is still true,” she said.
Stefani married her husband, Nello, in 1953, just one year after meeting him on a blind date. When he died suddenly 47 years later on Thanksgiving Day in 1997, Robbiano “was the first to be by her side.”
Robbiano was born in March 1924 to a German Catholic immigrant household in Evansville, Indiana. She met her husband, Paul, at a Valentine’s Day dance in her hometown. The two relocated to Menlo Park in 1955 and became founding members of St. Raymond’s in 1959.
As a career nurse, Robbiano said in her interview that “Let a smile be your umbrella on a rainy day” is her motto. Her husband, Paul, passed away 10 years ago from Alzheimer’s disease.
Moreno is the youngest member of the trio, born in April 1924 in San Francisco, and is “known by all at St Raymond Parish for her bright smile and flowered headband.” She has outlived both her first and second husbands.
A regular attendee of “Banjo Night” in Redwood City, Moreno told Clough, “I’ve always been a go-go girl, and I am still a go-go girl.”
These three women, who lived through the Great Depression, World War II, the dawn of the computer, the loss of their husbands, and the Covid-19 pandemic “breathe resilience,” Clough stated.
