Longtime volunteer enjoys her surprise 100th birthday party at Reagan Library

Beatrice Restifo received a lovely surprise on Monday morning at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.

The longtime volunteer who works the Monday docent shift at the Reagan Library was expecting to engage with library visitors, as usual. She wasn’t expecting a party.

“She is an elegant lady, soft-spoken and interested in others. Anyone lucky enough to know her knows what a delightful human being Beatrice is,” said Noelle Flohr, a close friend who organized the surprise birthday at the library. Beatrice Restifo turns 100 on July 3.

A Westlake Village resident, Restifo has racked up 3,000 hours volunteering at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library over more than 20 years.

Flohr said that when guests at the library heard about Restifo’s birthday, they asked if they could take photographs with her. “They were taking selfies with her, and that was charming,” Flohr said.

Restifo gave a short speech to 35 docents, saying she lived to 100 because she works with wonderful people. “My colleagues surprised me with a surprise birthday and cake and beautiful thoughts,” she said. “That was very, very kind of them.”

“She was just adorable and she was very composed and she talked about the reason she’s 100 years old — her genes,” said her friend Flohr. “Her father passed at 100, and her younger brother was 95 when he passed away last year. Her baby sister Rosemary Licata is 95 now, and she was with her to celebrate her birthday.”

The retired registered nurse, who specialized in cardiac care, was born on July 3, 1925 in New York and raised in Queens. She graduated in 1946 from New York University, Bellevue Hospital School of Nursing. Twenty years ago, she moved from the East Coast to California to be near her sister, Rosemary, who was a docent at the Reagan Library when it opened in 1991.

“I was surprised that people wanted to get their picture with me today,” Restifo said. “I think they had grandparents who weren’t as old as me,” she laughed.