By Eileen Moon
ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS – When the borough hosts its annual fireworks spectacular July 3, it will also be celebrating a second, very special occasion: the birthday of Virginia Voorhees Popik, a beloved borough resident who will mark her 100th birthday that day.
The town of about 5,000 residents recently issued a proclamation marking July 3 as Virginia Popik Day in recognition of her years of community service to this borough on the bay.
“This honor is bestowed on Mrs. Popik, a resident of Atlantic Highlands, to honor her loyal, dedicated and tireless service to her community throughout her life,” the proclamation reads in part.
Born in Bayonne in 1925, Popik grew up in South Plainfield, where her father worked for the former Central Railroad of New Jersey while her mother was a full-time homemaker. Because she had a sister who was sickly and needed more of her mother’s attention, the little girl known as Ginny started first grade at 4 years old.
She graduated from high school at the age of 16, at the outset of World War II. By the time she was a high school junior, Popik recalled recently, she knew she didn’t want a career as a secretary.
“I wanted to be a nurse,” she said. But when she went to apply for nurses’ training, “I was told they couldn’t take me until I was 18.” Undaunted, Popik enrolled in night school until she reached the required age.
With the war underway, the government needed nurses. Popik was invited to sign up for the nurses’ cadet corps, which issued her a uniform and paid her from the start of her training. “When we got there, they asked us what we would like to do. I signed up for surgery.”
But by the time she was fully trained and ordered to report to the recruiting station, the war was over. “They did not need us, so they said, ‘Thank you for your service,’ ” Popik recalled. “They let us keep the uniform.”
Instead of a military career, Ginny went into private duty nursing, working mainly in labor and delivery.
Meanwhile, her high school boyfriend George Popik, who later became her husband, had been offered a similar educational deal in the Navy. Given five choices for college, he enrolled in Cornell University to train as a mechanical engineer. He earned his degree in time to serve eight months on a troop ship before his service, too, was no longer needed.
“I was 29 days older than he was,” Ginny said of her husband, who died in 2008.
“He always loved to tell her that she was the older woman in his life,” added Ginny’s daughter, Leeann Lavin.
After the couple married, they lived in an apartment in Ginny’s parents’ house for several years before Bill’s career in private industry took them to other states. It was there that their first child, Linda, was born, followed by three more children as they moved around the country: Leeann, Sharon and James. Eventually, they would return to South Plainfield and Bill would establish his own company.
While raising her family, Ginny said, “I did private duty nursing so I could pick and choose when I worked.”
She also served on the South Plainfield Library board and volunteered at the Catholic school her children attended in South Plainfield, where she led the Catholic Youth Organization and coached the cheerleading team.
“They won almost every competition,” said Ginny’s daughter, Sharon.
In her free time, Ginny could be found on the golf course, winning her share of tournaments and trophies. “Golf was my biggest hobby,” she said.
As a mother, her daughters said, Ginny was rock-solid reliable. “You knew she would do whatever you asked her to do,” Leeann said. She carried that same level of dedication with her in everything she did.
“As her best friend said, ‘She’s the one you want with you in the trenches,’ ” added Sharon.
“They were called the Greatest Generation,” Leeann said of those like her mother who came of age during World War II. “President Kennedy said, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, (but) what you can do for your country.’ My mother has exemplified that spirit of community service for no other reason than to help.”
Ginny moved to Atlantic Highlands after nursing her husband through his final illness in 2008.
Maintaining her independence has always been important to her and she continues to live on her own. Although Leeann lives nearby, Ginny knew no one else in town. But it wasn’t long before she made herself at home.
“As soon as I moved down here, I had to find something to do,” Ginny said. Joining the Senior Center, she asked about volunteer opportunities and was told they needed someone at the door to greet people and make them feel welcome. “I’ve been doing it ever since,” Ginny said.
When the club held a birthday party for their oldest member recently, 65 people turned out, noted Senior Citizens Club President Roy Dellosso – far more than their usual turnout.
“She’s a wonderful ‘young’ lady,” Dellosso said, adding that she’s a whiz at the practicalities of collecting dues at each meeting as well as making people feel welcome. “I don’t think she’s ever missed a meeting.”
She has also been a very active member of St. Agnes Catholic Parish, which has dedicated two Masses to her July 2 and July 4. She credits her faith and her family with making life worth living as she enters her second century.
Though presently nursing a knee injury that is keeping her home with some help from her daughters, Ginny is looking forward to a return to the independent life she has led for the last 99-plus years.
And as the calendar page turns on Ginny’s second century next Thurs- day, her family has planned a “Great Gatsby”-themed party featuring a cocktail celebrating her favorite flower, the daisy, and a dress-to-the-nines Roaring Twenties celebration.
She is both surprised and grateful for the showers of affection she is receiving as the number of birthdays she has had crosses the three-digit mark.
“I’d like to thank everyone,” she said. “Everyone has been so wonderful.”
The years went fast, Ginny observed. “First, I’m a baby. Then I’ve got children. Then I’m old. It just went that quick.”
The article originally appeared in the June 27 – July 2, 2025 print edition of The Two River Times.
