TIPP CITY — Frances Gariety, formerly Frances Francis turns 100 years old on Nov. 16, 2022. She is the oldest of her 10 siblings, most of which have passed away except for Joan May, 90, who resides in Florida.
Gariety was born in 1922 in Mendota, Illinois, but moved to Ohio when she was 16 due to the Great Depression. The depression split up her entire family, sending her and her siblings to live with various aunts and uncles throughout the U.S. Despite the distance, Gariety was able to keep in touch with her family through the depression and after.
After moving to Ohio, she met her, now late, husband James Gariety, of Russia. The couple were married on Frances’ 24th birthday, Nov. 16, 1946. Together the Gariety’s have seven children, two sons-in-law and two daughters-in-law; Theodore Gariety, deceased in 2018; Thomas and Christy Gariety; Terence and his wife Diane Gariety; Teresa and her husband Andy Klepp; Timothy Gariety; Toni Ann and James Daniel; and Tamara and Dave Christian; and. The Gariety’s also have 20 grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren.
The couple raised their family on a small, 40-acre farm near Fort Loramie. James Gariety worked the farm mostly as a hobby, but when he passed in 1983 when Frances was 61 years old, she kept working the farm until she was 70, in 1992.
“She was quite the pioneer woman. She fended for herself as much as she could… She kept all of her siblings together, she went through the Great Depression and quite a lot of adversaries in her life. Deeply, people are moved by her, because of the type of spirit she has, she was basically a woman beyond her years,” said her daughter Toni Ann Daniel. “She took life by the hand whenever she left Mendota Illinois.”
When Frances finally left the farm she raised her family on, she moved to Piqua until 2021 when she moved to SpringMeade Health Center in Tipp City, where she now resides.
