Stonington — Asked as she approaches her 108th birthday how she's managed to live so long, Helen Hobbs doesn't miss a beat.

"I like my booze," said the longtime Stonington resident last week, speaking with a strong voice by phone from the Longwood, Fla., retirement community Village on the Green. "That's the secret I don't tell anybody."

Hobbs was born April 24, 1912, 10 days after the sinking of the Titanic during the presidency of William Howard Taft. She lived through the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 and World War I, though she doesn't have strong memories of either. She does recall, however, women winning the right to vote in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. She was 8 years old at the time.

"I thought they were entitled," she said.

Hobbs has voted in every presidential election since she turned 21, the original voting age before another amendment lowered the minimum to 18. A true-blue Republican through the years, she is planning a write-in ballot for her 22nd presidential election in nearly nine decades of voting. Family members said she voted for Donald Trump four years ago, and they don't expect her to flip now.

Hobbs grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and was admitted to Skidmore College "too young," according to her family, at the age of 16. She graduated with a degree in art history in 1932, and worked as the manager of the cosmetics department at a Macy's department store before meeting her future husband G. Warfield Hobbs III, a banker who went on to become a vice president for First National City Bank of New York, on a blind date.

The couple eventually relocated to western Connecticut and raised three children: Skip (G. Warfield Hobbs IV), William and Susan. But in the mid-1950s, on a boating trip, they landed in Stonington at a dock where Dodson's Boatyard is currently located and fell in love with the town.

"We looked for a house that would suit us on the water," Hobbs said.

And while her husband was commuting every day into Manhattan from the former Stonington train station, Hobbs was able to explore many of her passions, including tennis, golf, horse riding and art. According to her children, Hobbs was a founder of the annual antique auction held to benefit the Stonington Community Center.

Hobbs said she has given up painting and stenciling, but still enjoys working on decoupage, the art of placing paper cutouts onto objects to decorate them.

"She became well known for her artwork," her daughter, Susan H. Connell, said in a Zoom teleconference with her brother, William, a nature columnist for the Times weekly newspapers operated by The Day, both of whom are Stonington residents.

"It was a happy life," William Hobbs said. "I will always remember my mother for telling me, 'Do the most difficult assignments first and the the rest comes easy.' She always introduced me to guests that she and dad had over and told me to stand up straight, look people in the eye and extend your hand to get to know them."

Hobbs' children said their mom always loved to entertain, and it came as no surprise that she boasted of her penchant for drinking two glasses of wine at night.

"She used to say she was pickled in alcohol," Connell laughed. "She likes to have a shot of sherry in her soup."

Hobbs is not walking much these days, but caregiver Mary Reimann at Village on the Green said she had been in her own apartment until needing to relocate to the health center in October.

"I seem to be the oldest person here," Hobbs joked.

The centenarian, who has six grandsons and four great-grandchildren, had regularly flown from Florida to visit Connecticut until age 98, her children said.

Always adventurous, Hobbs at age 85 toured Tunisia with Connell, admiring the Roman ruins and Greek temples and visiting the open markets. Visits to Europe and South America were not uncommon as well.

"I have been to most countries because my husband liked to travel, and we both did it together," Hobbs said.

The Hobbses were married for 48 years until her husband's death in 1991. According to online sources and the family, he was the former chairman of the National Committee on Aging and an avid boater, though Hobbs loathed sailing and made her husband give it up when they moved to the retirement community 30 years ago.

During World War II, Hobbs and her husband were separated for two and a half years as he shipped off to England to head up the Eighth Army Air Corps supply transport operations in northern Europe, according to her children. But Connell said her dad wrote nearly every day, and the family still has all of his letters home.

Now tightly quarantined in her nursing facility, Hobbs regularly makes fun of staff members forced to come and go wearing masks to try to ensure the elderly residents are not exposed to the coronavirus.

"Things are fine," she said. "We get wonderful care, and I don't like to leave."

Hobbs' children, though, are sad they will not be able to visit their mom for her 108th birthday. Instead, they will be sending candy and balloons so she can celebrate with friends at the nursing facility.

"She's a real people person," said Connell.

Hobbs was one of the first residents of Villages on the Green, and for many years she spent much of her time hostessing and being the center of community life there. So it wasn't a surpise that she extended an invitation for a visit to an inquiring reporter as he bid her goodbye.

"I wish I had been with you," she said.

When told a visit might be arranged next winter, Hobbs shot back: "I hope I'm still around."

To which her caretaker for almost 20 years, Reimann, said: "My money's on her."

l.howard@theday.com