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Polaneczky: South Philly friends for 80 years

These South Philly women have been best friends for 80 years.

Friends for eight decades: Regina Braccili, and Regina Luchi (standing, from left), with Rita LaRocca (left) and Anna Marie Campagna at this year’s gathering at Francoluigi’s in South Philly.
Friends for eight decades: Regina Braccili, and Regina Luchi (standing, from left), with Rita LaRocca (left) and Anna Marie Campagna at this year’s gathering at Francoluigi’s in South Philly.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer

WHEN I ARRIVED AT Francoluigi's to meet the ladies of St. Rita's, I expected to find a noisy group sharing plates of manicotti and ziti. After all, it had been a year since they'd been together.

But they were quiet and content in the cozy South Philly restaurant at 13th and Tasker, happy just to be in each other's company. After eight decades as best friends, they're grateful that they're all still alive, in touch, and able to tell each other, "I love you."

"We're all 88, so I don't know how many more of these reunions we have left in us. But isn't this wonderful?" said Anna Marie Pinto Campagna as she gazed on the faces of the women she has known since they were all little girls at St. Rita of Cascia parish school in South Philly.

The school closed long ago, but the parish remains, dedicated as a national shrine in 2000. For the last 20 years, Campagna and four friends have reunited to celebrate St. Rita's feast day, which occurred Sunday.

Celebrating over lunch after Mass with the widowed Campagna was Regina Braccili, who is single and lives in the South Philly house where she grew up.

There were also Rita Maleno LaRocca and her husband, Albert, from Glenside.

And Regina Marsico Luchi and her husband, Bob, of Kansas City, who flew in for the reunion.

Present in spirit was Catherine Rastelli Reed, who is widowed and lives with her son in South Carolina. She couldn't make it to Philly this year, but stays in close touch with the "girls," as the women refer to themselves.

Although age-related infirmities (cardiac flukes, tricky legs) are restricting their ability to see each other often, the friends remain committed to knowing each other's lives and hearts.

They are in constant contact by phone. Campagna, LaRocca and Braccili, in fact, talk every single day.

Their connection gives me pause.

I think about my own long-ago parish-school friends. I remember them fondly, but am in sporadic touch with only a few of them. Our contact is hampered by the demands of career and family. Geography also separates us, as do values and interests that diverged as we came into our own.

Those differences fell away six years ago, when my grade school held a reunion. It was a joy to be among those who knew us when. But at night's end, most of us went back to lives among those who know us now.

It's the way of the modern world, I guess. The ever-presence of social media fools us into thinking we're deeply connected. But it's no substitute for actual conversation, the kind that lets us feel heard and known.

So I asked the ladies of St. Rita's: What is it like to remain intimate friends - for 80 years - with childhood pals?

"Everyone tells us it's incredible, but for us it's just natural," shrugs LaRocca. "I can't imagine anything better. I feel like the luckiest person in the world to have that stability."

Two years ago, when Campagna lost her husband and son 11 days apart, the girls got her through the loss. When Reed's first marriage ended in divorce, the girls got her laughing again. When Luchi lost a son to cancer, the girls rallied behind her.

"We don't have to explain anything to each other," says Campagna. "When you make new friends, you have to tell them your whole life story. But we all grew up within four or five blocks of each other. We know each other's families, we know the names of everybody's aunts and uncles. We have the same memories."

They remember the names of the nuns at St. Rita's - Sister Tarcisius and Sister Leonardine were favorites. And they remember how three of them cut class at Hallahan High School (Class of 1945) to see Frank Sinatra perform at a matinee at a downtown theater whose name they can't recall. They sneaked in a back door and wound up under the orchestra pit.

"We only did it once," hooted Reed, who spoke to me by phone. "Our parents were strict. They would've killed us."

The women loved to prank each other, but the pranks were never mean, says Braccili. They loved each other too much to let it hurt their bond.

"Anna Marie reminded me of the times she used to steal my lunch on the way to school and eat it on the subway," says Reed. "I'd get so mad!"

So one day in biology class, Reed took home the remains of the frog she'd dissected. She put it into a sandwich the next day for lunch. Sure enough, Campagna snatched it - and screamed when she saw what she was about to bite into.

"I got even," laughs Reed.

As the girls hit young adulthood, they got jobs at a five-and-dime, took bus trips to New York to see Broadway shows, attended dances around town. When they married, husbands came along for the fun: the dinners together, the trips to Atlantic City to watch the Miss America Pageant, the Christmas parties, the baptisms and weddings of their kids, and then grandkids.

"Our personalities just meshed," said Braccili. "I don't know how we did it."

The friendship of the St. Rita's ladies made me wonder if, as more and more Americans continue to live well into their 80s and beyond, we'll see more of these kind of long friendships.

Drexel University epidemiologist Yvonne Michael was unaware of any data that track whether such friendships are becoming more or less common.

"As people get older, though, there's some evidence that they eliminate ties that don't provide positive support," says Michael, who studies social factors associated with healthy aging. "They're balancing health issues, their world is getting a little bit smaller, and they prune off social ties that are not benefitting them."

So the fact that the ladies of St. Rita's have continued to make the cut for each other is testimony to the strength of their friendship. And their friendship may also be contributing to their individual longevity, since research shows that people with strong social networks tend to live longer than those without them.

LaRocca believes that the ladies of St. Rita's have come this far because they know, innately, that friendship, like marriage, needs continual love, compassion and understanding.

"It needs forgiveness, too," she said. But then again, "I can't think of anything we ever needed to forgive."

polaner@phillynews.com @RonniePhilly

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