As the Frank Rossi Quartet played the song “Tarantella” late last month in a banquet room at Balagio Ristorante in Homewood, Mary Lucarini blew out the 100 candles on her birthday cake. Lucarini, known to most as Mama Mary, has lived in the working class Hungry Hill neighborhood of Chicago Heights all her life, in the same home she was born in.

“She is the oldest person living on The Hill” said her son, Ronnie Lucarini. Mary Lucarini is of the first generation in her family to be born in the United States after her parents, Antonia and Cateldo Tucciarelli, came here from Italy. She has a century of stories, some going back to the Prohibition era, when Chicago Heights had its share of bootleggers.