Neighbors past and present on the 3800 block of Blanchan Avenue showed out this weekend to recognize resident Joe Morrissey on his 100th birthday.
Born March 14, 1926, Morrissey is a veteran of World War II and has lived in his house in Brookfield since 1979, he said.
Led by police squad cars and a firetruck, neighbors participated in a rolling rally with decked-out vehicles to celebrate Morrissey’s milestone birthday on Saturday. More than 20 neighbors also gathered on foot outside his home, as representatives from American Legion Post 1941 in LaGrange recognized him for his service in the final years of World War II as an aviation ordnance specialist in the Navy.
To cap off the festivities, Susan Daniels, a former neighbor who organized the rally, presented Morrissey with a collection of more than 400 birthday cards with messages from members of the Brookfield community, from neighborhood kids to officials at Village Hall.
Morrissey’s family also held a private birthday celebration on Sunday, March 15, at the Joshua Harris VFW Post 2868 in Brookfield.
Daniels said she first met Morrissey after her family moved in across the street from him in 2004.
“He was in his 80s, he was an elderly man, and he was out there every day shoveling snow,” she told the Landmark. “It was amazing to watch. I was observing from afar for a little bit, but then, at one point, I went over there. It was a really badsnowstorm, one for the years, and I went over. I grew up learning that you take care of your elderly neighbors. I started to shovel his snow, and he was like, ‘No, no, no. I got this.’”
Over time, she got to know him as a neighbor and a friend, listening to his stories of his life from before and after he moved to Brookfield.
His son, Tom Morrissey, said the centenarian grew up with “a rather large Irish family on the South Side of Chicago.” He married his late wife, Rose Therese Morrissey, nee Sentivanac, in 1952, and the couple had Tom in 1953.
For nearly two decades, Morrissey worked for A&P, the grocery chain that started as a tea and coffee retailer, his son said, before he moved into the banking world for another 20 years or so.
Tom Morrissey said he and his siblings grew up in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago and that his father’s Navy service inspired his own three-decade military career. Of the couple’s four children, eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, one of their grandsons felt the same and has served for more than 10 years in the military, he said.
“It is heartening to me to see the outpouring of love for my father. This is not the first year that they’re doing something like this. This is maybe the biggest, because it’s a 100-year celebration, but the kids and the neighbors have always come by to visit, to say hello, to bring balloons,” Tom Morrissey said. “He is a really amazing person. At 100 years old, he has a crystal-clear mind … He still does the taxes for my siblings, if you can imagine that. He was always a math expert.”
Daniels said she felt compelled to organize the rally for Morrissey because of what an important community fixture — and a “really, really great guy” — he’s become.
“To be living as long and as well as he does; he still lives at home alone. He has family, and he’s very proud of his family. He can talk to you for hours about his family,” she said. “He deserves this.”
As the celebrations were winding down on Saturday, Morrissey said he knew the rally had been planned but wasn’t expecting to see so many community members turn out.
“In Brookfield, I don’t have neighbors,” he said. “I have friends.”
