Amerigo “Vic” Vicari was honored just before his 100th birthday on Dec. 29 as members of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Niantic gathered on Zoom to celebrate.

“Vic has had, and continues to have, what his daughter Barbara Pollock calls ‘an amazing 100 years!’” said the parish in an announcement.

Vicari’s motto is ““ogni giorno e un rigalo,” which translates from Italian as “every day is a gift.”

The Episcopal Church has played a central part in Vicari’s life. He moved to East Lyme 40 years ago with his wife Laura, who died in 2014.

“Vic continues to reside in their home in the Pine Grove section of Niantic,” the parish said.

Prior to his 40 years at St. John’s, Vicari and family for 30 years belonged to an Episcopal church in Queens, N.Y.

“Vic is, without question, a ‘people person’ who loves to socialize and is described, lovingly, by a fellow parishioner as ‘a schmoozer’ who still betrays a hint of his New York accent,” according to a release. “A man of principle, he is passionate about what he believes in and gives of himself, selflessly, both to St. John’s Parish and to the wider community in countless, often anonymous ways.”

Just one example: He was the driving force behind St. John’s Columbarium (an area where burial urns are located) at the main entrance to the church.

“Vic was instrumental, not only in the design of the columbarium and as a member of the Columbarium project committee but underwrote the entire cost of its construction and installation,” the release said. “Vic is active in the East Lyme Public Trust Foundation that built the Niantic Bay Boardwalk and is a benefactor of the Smilow Cancer Center’s Healing Garden and the Lawrence + Memorial Hospital’s L.A.M.B.S. and many other community organizations.”

Still, his philanthropy is known to few.

Vicari was born Dec. 29, 1920, in New York City, just two years after the Armistice was signed ending World War I and the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 that killed 675,000 Americans and over 50 million worldwide.

Woodrow Wilson was in the White House when Vicari was born and was the first of 19 Americans to be elected president of the United States during his lifetime.

Descended from his Sicilian immigrant parents, he recalls countless stories of growing up on the west side of Manhattan around 46th Street and 12th Avenue, in what he describes as a rough neighborhood in New York City in the 1920s and early 1930s.

The neighborhood of his youth was on the northern periphery of Manhattan’s old slaughterhouse district known as “Abattoir Row,” one of New York’s bloodiest streets. Cattle delivered to the city via ferry or rail line were penned in stockyards there before being led into processing factories (slaughterhouses) and turned into beef for market.

Vicari has vivid memories of the struggles and deprivation that people, including his own family, went through during the Great Depression. His Sicilian immigrant father was a laborer who eventually lost his job due to the great Stock Market crash of 1929. He never recovered.

Vicari’s diminutive stature never discouraged him from pitching in, doing odd jobs and running errands to help support his mother and the family.

During World War II, Vicari served in the U.S. Naval Construction Battalions or Seabees. Following his war service and honorable discharge, Vicari worked in New York City for a company specializing in merchandising advertising/displays in department stores and convention centers both domestically and internationally.

After finally “retiring” at age 80, he found his true life’s calling as a wine sales representative for a national wine distributor and continued in that field into his late 80s, earning his reputation as a wine connoisseur.

Vicari’s annual raffle donation to his church’s Christmas bazaar and basket raffle (a basket of exceptional quality wines) has been a much sought after prize.

When asked about his longevity, Vicari ticked off three things with a laugh and a smile.

“I was raised on a Mediterranean diet, long before anyone knew what to call it. My mother brought that style of cooking over from Sicily since that’s the only way she knew how to cook, and of course, the ‘secret ingredients’: good RED WINE and the ability to laugh and smile!” he said.

Vicari still lives by his life’s motto. He loves to travel to Europe in the summer and to Florida, away from New England winter weather, now with his partner and companion Jane Calkins. He still holds out hope of travelling to the shores of the Amalfi coast in Italy next summer after the pandemic subsides.

Joe Legg is a member of St. John Episcopal Church in Niantic.

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