At 110, she still loves a presidential election

TOLLAND, Conn. - When you're 110, memories can be fuzzy. But Irma Schmidt's clear blue eyes light up when she describes the first time she voted 88 years ago.

Schmidt remembers marching to her hometown fire station in Ohio with her grandmother, mother, and aunt to cast proudly their first votes for the state's favorite son, Warren G. Harding, the Republican presidential candidate.

Schmidt, who now lives in Tolland, said she hasn't missed a November election since.

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, who honored Schmidt in 2005 for being one of the oldest women in Connecticut to have cast a ballot in 1920, the first year of full voting rights for women, believes Schmidt is the oldest active voter in Connecticut. Gertrude Noone, a 109-year-old from Milford, is close behind.

During a recent interview at Woodlake at Tolland, the nursing home where she has lived since 2004, Schmidt remembered voting for Harding and for Franklin D. Roosevelt, but couldn't recall after that.

"Voting was always something you looked forward to," said Schmidt, who celebrated her 110th birthday Oct. 7.

A longtime unaffiliated voter, Schmidt told The Hartford Courant 10 years ago that she had voted for Truman, Kennedy, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. Bysiewicz recalls Schmidt saying she voted for John Kerry in 2004.

It's unclear whether Schmidt will vote for president for a 23d time. The nursing home staff said she joins them with the morning paper and talks about the news every day. But Schmidt couldn't say whether she'd vote this year.

Schmidt raised a family in New Brunswick, N.J., with her husband, George, a political scientist and historian at Douglass College, the women's college at Rutgers. Irma Schmidt taught school during World War II and for decades taught piano in their home.

"All those recitals," Schmidt remembered.

Her daughter, Marianne Simonoff of Tolland, recalls the lively political discussions that filled their home.

"My father was the political scientist. She felt it was a duty to vote," Simonoff, 81, said.

Remarkably, there are 1,730 registered voters in Connecticut who are over 100 years old, Bysiewicz said. The state allows supervised voting by elderly and disabled residents in nursing homes as long as registrars from both major political parties are present to make sure there is no improper influence.

Bysiewicz recalls being charmed in 2005 by Schmidt's smile and sharp wit.

"I'm delighted to hear that Irma is still with us," she said.