At 107, this Connecticut gentleman still plays bocce with the boys at the club, and he’s ‘not just living, he’s thriving’

At 107, Frank Sacco could be the oldest man in Connecticut. It’s hard to know for sure.

“It doesn’t matter, because no one’s playing bocce” at that age, said his son, Andrew Sacco. “There may be someone lying in his bed somewhere.”

Frank Sacco isn’t lying in bed at the home he shares with his son and daughter-in-law in Cheshire. He’s still a regular on Wooster Street in New Haven, having lunch with the guys at the Society of Santa Maria Maddalena on Tuesdays and playing bocce at Wooster Memorial Park on Sundays.

Sacco walks with a cane and takes no medications. Age has taken most of his hearing, but otherwise he’s in excellent health. Just talk loud and clear if you want to be heard.

“Like they say in Italian, ‘Invecchiare puzza,'” Sacco said. “Getting old stinks.”

But it’s hard to believe it really stinks for a man in such good health who still dances, who “married a beautiful girl from Tennessee” and whose mind is still quick, even if his body has slowed down a little.

“I was born at 82 Wooster St. in 1914, Nov. 28, 1914,” Sacco said. “And now the road, the highway, ran right over and supplanted it.” He moved to North Haven, the suburbs, as did so many of the Wooster Street Italian Americans.

Before that, though, he would play stickball, box and play at Waterside Park, which was on New Haven Harbor, near Sargent & Co.

“Wooster Street was so close to Waterside Park that all the kids that lived on Wooster Street or thereabouts all [went] down to Waterside Park,” to play tennis and ride on the swings, Sacco said. “And they had to cross Water Street, which was very dangerous because of the cars. So many cars going by Water Street.”

“When I was a young man, I would see Mr. Sacco,” said Thomas Aquaro of East Haven, who lived on Brown Street. “I’d sign the contract tomorrow — live to that age?”

Sacco’s parents, Andrea and Margherita Sacco, immigrated from Amalfi about 1900. The family also lived at 105 Wooster St., which still stands two houses away from the highway. They ran General Food Market in the building now occupied by Tre Scalini Ristorante. Andrea and Frank Sacco ran Consumers Outlet on Grand Avenue as well, selling La Rosa macaroni for 8 cents and Fiorello salad oil for 79 cents a gallon.

In addition, “My father was a fish peddler,” Frank Sacco said. “We’d go up and down the Italian neighborhoods and I would blow the horn and I would say, ‘Oh, pesce!’ and people would come down and buy the fish on the truck, and I was about 10 years old.”

He and his wife, Madeline Harrison Sacco, had been married for 72 years when she died in 2016. She was from Tennessee. “She came to visit her sister, and I wouldn’t let her go,” Sacco said. He said he was quite the dandy. “At the time … the guys wore spats,” he said. “I was elegant. I thought I was fancy.”

Besides Andy Sacco, Frank and Madeline Sacco, had a daughter, Francesca Wells, who lives in Colchester.

He graduated from the old Commercial High School in 1932. “I never had the opportunity to go to college, which I feel bad about,” he said. He was an artist, voted “most artistic” in high school, and wrote and edited a Republican Party newspaper.

“I was the editor and chief copywriter for the Republican Trumpet newspaper. I wrote editorials; I wrote everything,” Frank Sacco said. “I’m a writer. … I’ve written poetry. … I’ve done the artwork. You’ve got to see the paintings I’ve done. I’ve been an active person.”

When Richard Nixon visited New Haven, Sacco gave him a copy of the Trumpet. ” I shook hands with Nixon,” he said. “He had big knuckles.”

After serving in the Merchant Marine in World War II, he had a long, successful career, first with cars and then with finance. “I’ve been a stockbroker with Smith Barney in Hartford, and before that I sold a business, Connecticut Auto Parts on Grand and Fillmore,” he said.

Sacco said he didn’t know anything about cars, but he ran a machine shop that rebuilt engines. He was still driving at 100. He bought a truck at that age and brought it home to show his son.

He never joined the societies, even though his father was president of the Society of St. Andrew, which was founded by Amalfitani immigrants, for 15 years. “He was such a businessman,” Andy Sacco said of his father. “He didn’t find time for the societies.” But he’s been made an honorary member of the Santa Maria Maddalena Society.

Frank Sacco was a “very industrious guy, working all the time,” his son said. “For me to see him, one of his … delivery drivers would pick me up from school and bring me down to the store here on Grand Avenue. And I’d be down here all day. So even though we lived down in North Haven, I feel like I grew up in New Haven.”

Andy Sacco said his father is a “good man, very kind. I mean, he could be tough, but he was very supportive, you know, very supportive. He always wanted to push me. He was driven himself … and he directed me in the same way.”

Rich Biondi, who teaches social studies at Walsh Middle School in Branford and has published several oral histories of Wooster Square, said Sacco is an invaluable resource.

“What makes him special is that … he’s not just living, he’s thriving,” Biondi said. “For a man to be his age and to have the sharpness that he has. This is a primary resource that we have to chronicle because we’re not reading it out of a textbook. … He’s a treasure.”

Biondi brought the conversation he had with Sacco in November into his classroom. “And my kids were amazed. … They’re like, ‘What? He’s 100 years old?’ I said ‘Yeah, now we’re going to talk about living 100 years ago. He talked about living in an apartment with no bathroom and no heating and the kids are like, ‘What? There’s no central heating?’ Again, he’s just a treasure in the sense that he can take us back a century and do it with such clearness and passion, too.”

Biondi said he asked Sacco about his longevity “and he was very proud. One of his secrets was that he’s never gained any weight. … He had a sweater on when I met him in November that he had 80 years ago. And that was his way of saying I’ve never gained any weight.”

“He broke his hip once, and he had a hip replacement,” Andy Sacco said. That was about four years ago. “But he sailed through that, like a younger person, you know?” he said. “He went through rehabilitation, and now he walks like he did before. He’s in better shape than I am.”

Frank Sacco said he lives by a simple maxim he got from tennis great Arthur Ashe. “He said these words, and I abide by them,” Sacco said. “He says: Start where you are. Use what you have. Do the best you can. In other words, wherever you are, don’t try to do what you can’t anymore. You can’t do the things you used to do. So you start where you are. Use what you have. Do the best you can. Arthur Ashe said that, and I live by those words.”

Ed Stannard can be reached at estannard@courant.com or 860-993-8190.