Greene native celebrates 105th birthday
There’s “no trick” to living to be 105, said Julia Plasko.
Clean living might have helped, said her daughter, Cindy Levo. Plasko never drank, and never smoked.
But she’s managed to fit in a lot more in her 105 years, from serving in World War II to decades of contributions to the community.
Plasko and her five siblings grew up in Nemacolin, where their father was a coal miner.
Levo grew up hearing the stories about life in the house during the Great Depression.
“Your grandma would get flour to bake with, and then the flour came in pretty sacks, pretty colored cloth, and your mom would make dresses out of that for you,” she recalled to Plasko during an interview last week.
The family still has the wooden refrigerator Plasko used as a child.
After graduating from Carmichaels-Cumberland High School in 1938, she moved to Buffalo, N.Y., where she worked at Houde Engineering.
As World War II raged on, she and a friend from Buffalo eventually decided “we have to do our part,” Levo said. In February 1944, they went to the Bronx to enlist.
Plasko did boot training with the U.S. Navy in Hunter College in New York, before going to Washington, D.C., where she would be stationed for the rest of her service.
Plasko worked as a cartographer, making maps for the ships at sea, and also served as a secretary to a lieutenant in the Navy’s hydrographic office.
Plasko still has the photo album of her Navy days. Flipping through it with Plasko, Levo marveled at the vintage cars and the bell-bottomed pants of the sailors. Plasko often told Levo those were “the best years of my life.”
“That was a lot of fun,” she said. “We all got along real good.”
Plasko was awarded the World War II Victory Medal and the American Campaign Medal for her service.
Growing up in a Czechoslovakian immigrant family, Plasko has spoken fluent Russian all her life. That trait made her highly sought after by the Navy, which wanted her to re-enlist as a Russian interpreter.
But, she had bigger things to take care of back home.
“She felt like she needed to be home to take care of her parents, because all the other siblings left,” Levo said.
She returned to Nemacolin in 1946. A couple of years later, she married Charles Plasko, with whom she had two children — Levo and Charles “Pye” Plasko, now known for his Greene County weather forecasts.
A stay-at-home mother, Plasko kept active in the community, always baking goodies for the Nemacolin Volunteer Fire Department and her church, Our Lady of Constellation in Nemacolin.
She shined at ethnic foods she’d learned from her mother. Favorites were halupkis, a stuffed cabbage roll with noodles, or kolachis, a Czech pastry filled with fruit.
Plasko would also make the pies, cakes and cookies that would sell out at school bake sales.
“The neighbors always said she should have had a bakery, because she was a pretty baker,” Levo said. “If she made one cookie, the next 30 would look exactly like that first cookie.”
She was an avid bowler, amassing a collection of trophies.
Plasko had lived the rest of her life in Nemacolin until seven months ago, when she moved into the Mt. Macrina Manor home in Uniontown.
Levo hadn’t been that interested in hearing about her mother’s World War II service when she was younger. As she entered her 30s, that changed. Plasko still had her old uniform, and her old menus, greeting cards, and other items from her past. She recorded conversations with her mother about the war, capturing those memories before they could fade.
“I think when I got older and I had my own children, you kind of realize how precious life is and how quickly it goes by,” she said.
As the number of surviving World War II veterans dwindles, Plasko has become increasingly recognized. The state House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring her 104th birthday. And she served as grand marshal of the Waynesburg’s Veterans Day parade in Waynesburg in 2023.
“We had a reception at the house, and I had everything laid out, everything that she had, had her uniform on a hanger,” Levo said.
Thursday, she was celebrated with an early birthday party at Mt. Macrina Manor, joined by an honor guard of local Veterans of Foreign Wars members and the Fayette County Board of Commissioners.
Plasko was given a crown and a 105th birthday sash.
“I thought that was real nice,” Plasko said. “I felt real good about it.”