Josephine Belasco -- 98-year-old high school graduate dies
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Josephine Belasco, the determined 99-year-old San Francisco woman who
charmed the Bay Area and the nation last year when she got around to
graduating from high school, has died.
Mrs. Belasco died Wednesday at her son's home in Walnut Creek after a
long illness.
"I'm glad I finally made it,'' Mrs. Belasco told The Chronicle last
June, shortly before donning a white cap and gown and graduating with
the rest of the Galileo High School class of 2006, all of whom were
eight decades her junior.
Mrs. Belasco lived in the same Nob Hill apartment building owned by
her family where she grew up. Her kid sister, 91-year-old Angelina
Vernarecci, lives across the hall.
She was a native of Calabria, Italy, and the daughter of a bootblack.
She came to San Francisco with her family at the age of 1, worked for
three decades as an accountant in the Financial District, and raised a
son. But she always regretted dropping out of Galileo in 1926 to care
for her ailing sister.
Last year, her family convinced her that it was not too late to finish
her coursework. The school assigned students to tutor her, then
granted her an honorary degree. A few weeks later, she was walking to
the stage inside Bill Graham Civic Auditorium to the beat of "Pomp and
Circumstance."
A spate of newspaper and television appearances followed, including a
guest appearance on the late-night "Jimmy Kimmel Live" show, where she
revealed that a secret to longevity was drinking wine instead of water
because "water makes you rusty.''
She was especially tickled to hear her name announced over the
loudspeaker as a special guest at her beloved Bay Meadows racetrack,
particularly after she picked the winning horse in the sixth race -- a
7-1 longshot.
Her grandson, Marcello Belasco, said Mrs. Belasco always seemed to be
cooking and always seemed to be trying to get her family to eat.
"She was making my father a sandwich when he was 75 and asking him,
'Did you eat it, did you eat it?' " Marcello Belasco said. "She cared
more about everyone else than herself. And she loved making her own
ravioli, with spinach and ricotta cheese.''
Marcello Belasco said his grandmother was proud of her diploma but did
not overdo it.
"She put it up on the wall and got on with her life,'' he said.
She is survived by her son, Edward Belasco Jr. of Walnut Creek, and by
three grandchildren and her sister.
A funeral Mass will be said at 11 a.m. Tuesday at SS Peter and Paul's
Church on Washington Square in San Francisco.
Steve Rubenstein, Chronicle Staff Writer