Frances Vener (c.) was honored by Assemblymember Michael Gianaris at recent celebrations of her 100th birthday. Vener was born in Cape Town, South Africa, then moved with her family to England and then to the United States, where her red hair was the talk of her Middle Village kindergarten. She married Bernard Vener shortly after graduating from Newtown H.S., to which she remembers traveling by horse-drawn car. The Veners had three daughters and one son and in the course of their marriage. She is shown flanked by two friends at Archbishop Iakovos HANAC Senior Center, where she now resides, Gianaris and (far r.) Stavroula Joannides, the center’s director.