CORNWALL’S KLARA CALITRI celebrated her 102nd birthday on Sept. 5. The prolific artist and longtime educator has had an eventful life, and she shared some of the highlights during a recent interview.
Independent photo/John Flowers

CORNWALL — To say Cornwall’s Klara Calitri has lived a full, eventful life would be a massive understatement.

The 102-year-old has been blessed with a long marriage, created stunning artwork that’s been displayed in numerous galleries and that now adorns virtually every space of her home, and seen and experienced volumes of history on two continents.

Ever upbeat, welcoming and generous of spirit, Calitri last week greeted a familiar Independent scribe keen on capturing her thoughts, rituals and reminiscences as she forged her way deeper into the county’s exclusive centenarians club. Calitri has always been proud of her resolve and self-sufficiency. Rather than point her visitor to a specific painting she’d created, the diminutive but relentless Calitri summons her strength to stand, and then — a cane in each hand — slowly propels herself through her art-filled hallways to the piece she was referencing.

Each piece of art has its own story and needs narration, and she’s happy to provide it.

Her own story began in Vienna, Austria, in1922. That European nation’s first chancellor, Ignaz Seipel, came to power in May of that year and quickly tried to forge a political alliance between wealthy industrialists and the Roman Catholic Church.

Calitri’s (née Feiner) mom ran a clothing store and her dad was a banker. She was raised in a caring household and enjoyed a happy childhood.

Until she turned 16. That was in 1938, when Nazi Germany’s Adolph Hitler ordered the annexation of Austria, referred to as the Anschluss. Hitler by this time was well into his program of persecuting and killing Jewish citizens. Klara’s dad was Jewish while her mom was Catholic. This made Klara a “Mischling” — a pejorative legal term used by the Nazi regime to denote people of mixed Jewish/Aryan ancestry.

“I had to leave Austria,” she recalled, as her parents feared for her safety.

Fortunately, Klara’s mom had family in Czechoslovakia. It seemed like a safe haven from the expanding Nazi empire.

“I said, OK, I’m going to go to Czechoslovakia to live with my grandparents in Prague, and attend a Czech school,” she said.

Klara’s immense linguistical talents made her transition fairly seamless. But while she could overcome language barriers, she couldn’t overcome Hitler’s relentless advance.

“Low and behold, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia,” Calitri said. “It was a heartbreaker.”

Hitler’s army made quick work of its weaker target. Czechoslovakians were divided on how to approach their invaders.

“On one side of the street, people were lined up saying ‘Heil Hitler,’ and on the other side they were standing and crying,” Calitri recalled.

A BAD PART OF HUMANITY

She perceives parallels between the German dictator and former President Donald Trump, who’s back on the ballot this November. She believes Trump has taken a page from the Nazi playbook, using rhetoric that marginalizes and demonizes immigrants.

For example, during Tuesday night’s presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump repeated a false allegation that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, had been eating cats and dogs. He also said most immigrants are criminals, which is not true.

Calitri compared the action of some Trump supporters in the Capitol building attack on Jan. 6, 2021, to Hitler’s failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich on Nov. 8-9, 1923.

“The putsch collapsed, and Hitler was put in jail after that. But he got out of that and then had huge success,” Calitri said.

She noted the conditions in post-World War I Europe were sadly ripe for a strongman to take over; countries were dealing with major economic woes punctuated by high unemployment and inflation.

“My grandmother went shopping with a wheelbarrow because it took that much (money) to buy anything,” Calitri said. “I think people were ready for anyone who made big promises to be successful. At that point it was a matter of a bad part of humanity coming through.

“God, I hope it doesn’t happen here,” she added.

Calitri will anxiously await the results of the Nov. 5 general election. But in the meantime, she has family, friends, her artwork and many pleasant memories to keep her company.

Those memories include immigration to the U.S. during her late teens, marriage to her beloved Junius Calitri when she was 20; a long, successful career as an educator, primarily in New York state; and a happy life in Addison County.

Her first impulse was to go on to art school.

“But my parents said, ‘You’ve got to get training for something so you can support yourself and not have to depend on a man,’” she said with a smile.

Well, she was very good with languages and history, but was — by her own admission — “terrible” in math.

Calitri considers herself “very lucky,” at age 17, to have been accepted to a Catholic School at a nunnery in Connecticut.

“There were a huge number of refugees (seeking to leave Europe), but not a lot of Catholic refugees,” she said.

The nuns were French, and Klara had already mastered that language. She did very well during the year and a half she spent at the nunnery, eventually earning her high school diploma. Her grades earned her a scholarship to attend Trinity College (for comparative literature) in Burlington, followed by graduate school at Cornell University.

‘A GREAT SUMMER’

Klara was still a student and seeking a job at a summer camp in New York state when she met her future husband. She needed a Red Cross lifesaving certificate to clinch her summer camp job. Trouble was, all the lifesaving courses were done for the summer. She was advised to go to a local beach to see if a certified lifeguard could put her through the paces.

She took a bus to the nearest beach and scanned the area for the fittest looking lifeguard. It was Junius, and he wasn’t just a “good” swimmer. He was the National Junior Swim Champion while at Dee Witt Clinton High School and would later earn a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team for the 1940 games.

“I told him ‘I need a certificate to get the camp job, do you think you could do it?’” Klara recalled. “He looked me over and said, ‘Why don’t you come back tomorrow.’ I came back the next day and it took him all summer to teach me. I never got the (camp) job, but we had a great summer.”

They married the next year, when she turned 20. They remained together until his death, 69 years later, in 2012.

Klara spent the better part of four decades teaching virtually all grade levels, primarily in the subjects of German, French, Spanish, Latin and even physical education for a year when Trinity College had an elementary school.

She was the first woman to work in the German Department at Columbia. She taught for many years at schools in the Putnam Valley region of New York.

Junius was also a lifelong educator, teaching primarily physical education and science. He became principal and then superintendent of the Putnam Valley Central Schools. He served as superintendent for the Garrison School District in Garrison, N.Y., for several years. The couple retired to Vermont in 1980, though they remained very active volunteers for charitable and civic causes.

They raised three children who make sure mom is doing well during her golden years.

Living in Vermont has always felt like home to Klara, who along with her husband was an avid skier.

“Vermont is more like Austria than any other state in the country,” she said.

KLARA’S ARTWORK

She has drawn artistic inspiration from the state and Addison County for her multimedia art creations. Landscapes, wildlife and people are the centerpieces of many of her stunning works, which have been shown at the Town Hall Theater, the Shelburne Museum and many other venues.

Calitri is largely self-taught, which makes her artwork seem even more impressive. Whether it’s oils, watercolors, ceramics, tiles or acrylic, she has the ability to make her subjects pop off the canvas. She’s tabled, at least for now, the notion of making new artwork; she has several pieces that need to be finished.

Using one’s hands to create has also been therapeutic for the artist.

“If you paint something, you can understand it better,” she said.

“People bring me flowers and I want to paint them,” she laughed.

Calitri has experienced all four seasons 102 times. Asked to account for her longevity, she chalked it up to never smoking, consistent exercise — largely through swimming, tennis and skiing — widening her horizons through travel and eating what she wants (within reason). She’s always picked fruit over candy.

Sticking to a reasonable diet became a little bit of challenge with Junius, she acknowledged with a smile. He had been raised on copious amounts of pasta.

“When we got married, I said ‘Juni, I can’t live on a daily diet of so-so spaghetti. What are we going to do?’” she said.

They compromised on one pasta meal (cooked by Junius) per week.

Living a long life is nice, but it comes with drawbacks, according to Klara. The body breaks down, the loss of independence and fewer peers with whom to commiserate.

“I don’t know how I ever got this far. I don’t belong anymore. Almost all my friends have died,” she lamented.

But she’s always been adaptable, as one would expect from someone who escaped the onslaught of Nazism — twice.

“Try to be kind and have good friends,” she advised. “Forget the bad things and try to set them aside.”

Reporter John Flowers is at [email protected].