PROFILE The remarkable life of Mildred Gordon Haniford By Barry A. Muskat; photos by kc kratt The only way to describe Millie Haniford is to declare that she is absolutely remarkable. Haniford, who celebrated her one-hundredth birthday with her family on November 14, is highly articulate, extremely well-read, opinionated on politics and current events, and possesses a delightful sense of humor. Still a beautiful woman, she carries her age proudly, is always immaculately groomed and stylishly dressed, and truly looks a full quarter century younger than the age to which her birth certificate attests. What is even more amazing is that she lives self-sufficiently in the same lovely single-family multilevel Buffalo house she’s called home for sixty-two years. She only gave up driving—her own decision—in the last few months, has a regular exercise routine, and enjoys an extremely active social schedule. It’s interesting to note that life expectancy for an American in the year 1900 was only forty-nine years. That statistic has increased over the past century to seventy-six years, and demographic projections suggest that life expectancy will continue to improve. In fact, centenarians are the fastest-growing segment of our population. That being said, I’ll bet that it would be hard to find another centenarian who is quite as much a Thoroughly Modern Millie as Haniford. She has two children, four grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, and three “great-greats.” She proudly notes that all her great-grandchildren were boys until the ninth, a girl who happened to be born on Millie’s ninety-eighth birthday. Mildred Gordon Haniford Date of birth: November 14, 1908 Books just read waiting to return to library: Joy Fielding’s Charley’s Webb and Marilynne Robinson’s Home. Favorite food: I think I eat properly—I usually have protein, a vegetable, and salad for dinner. How many times a day she goes up and down the stairs of her home: I couldn’t count them. I don’t put something down to take up later. I never hesitate. A life-long Buffalonian, Mildred Hirsch was born in 1908 in the Jefferson Hospital. At the time, her family lived on Cypress, on Buffalo’s East Side. They moved to Adam Street, next door to her grandparents, and later moved to a house on North Park. She attended School 39 and Hutchinson High School. Millie recalls that financial need required her to go straight to work—she received special permission to leave school during her senior year. The first job she had was at the Elk Street Market. (This is the Elk Terminal which was gentrified into popular loft apartments as one of Buffalo’s first adaptive reuse projects.) “Many successful Buffalonians started their businesses at the Elk Market,” she recalls. She worked as the first bookkeeper in Nate Satuloff’s poultry business. Haniford describes a busy terminal housing wholesale fruit, vegetables, and other bustling enterprises. She met her first husband, Nathan Gordon, at the Elk Market. “He was studying to be an engineer, but his parents conscripted him to join the family meat business,” she says. Her wedding was held in 1931 at her parents’ North Park home. Nate started his own company as the leased meat department in Loblaw’s on Jefferson Avenue. Then he opened his own store, for which Millie did the bookkeeping at home. He expanded by buying the Purnell’s Ganson Street provisioning business and became the major supplier to the freighters that came to Buffalo. Gordon Provisioning flourished at the Crystal Beach Terminal at the foot of Commercial Street. (A rough estimate would locate that terminal somewhere near where the new Military Museum sits along the recreated Commercial Slip.) The company’s employees would go out to meet the freighters on their way into port in their boat, the Gordon. They were on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In addition to filling huge food orders for the freighters—ships were like small hotels, and the quality of food was top-notch; orders had to be turned around promptly before departure—Haniford says, “We took care of everything that was needed: their laundry, if their eyeglasses broke, if they needed a doctor or medications.” After a forty-year marriage, Nathan Gordon died in 1970, but Mildred continued to run the business. (She married Jack Haniford in 1972 and was wed to him for twenty-eight years, until his death in 1999.) Taking over the business was a natural for her since she had handled all its logistics and bookkeeping. She has clear memories of specific ships, companies, and people. One example was ship owner Harry Steinbrenner who gave his son George—who would become the infamous long-time owner of the New York Yankees—Kinsmen Transportation. George later joined partners Margulies and Naples to form Buffalo’s well-known Roundtable Restaurant, for whom Gordon Provisioning was the exclusive supplier. Haniford’s vitality is still inspiring. An avid cook, she edited the popular cookbook Measure-for-Pleasure for Temple Beth Zion, a volume still in use in many kitchens. The year-long project was headquartered from her dining room table. She started exercising years ago while vacationing in Florida in a program started by her friend, Buffalonian Anne Bunis. She continued the routine in Buffalo and still goes to the gym at the Jewish Community Center several times a week. An avid reader, she especially enjoys nonfiction. “I go to the Delaware Avenue or Montrose Library every week,” she says. “I get five books, usually reading three and finding that I don’t like two.” Mildred Haniford, working out at the Jewish Community Center. She’s also an avid Bills fan who tries to watch every game, and confesses to a real addiction to political coverage on television, being a faithful viewer of C-Span. Haniford’s home is lovely and immaculate, and she’s proud that she cares for it herself, having only occasional cleaning help. She does all her own laundry and ironing. The fact that the laundry is in her basement and her bedroom is on the second floor does not deter her. “I don’t hesitate to climb the stairs—I just go,” she notes. She also believes “the stairs might just be the reason I’m here in this condition.” As for other activities, Haniford says, “I still have a bridge game on Mondays and play canasta on Tuesdays. I’m the oldest, but my canasta girls are in their eighties—the youngest of the bridge girls will turn ninety-five.” When asked on advice for others on her ability to age so gracefully, Haniford immediately replies, “I do have the faculty to accept things, take life as it comes, and not wallow in adversity. With all the friends that I’ve lost, I can’t understand how I still have such a busy social life!” Barry A. Muskat is Spree’s architecture critic and a long-time contributing writer on many topics. He says his biggest challenge in writing this article was to not use the word “remarkable” in every paragraph. SUBSCRIBE NOW Back to the Table of Contents Back to Top