- Four women who graduated high school together in the 1950s have reunited in a senior living community, becoming a modern day Golden Girls
- Joan Harris, Elsie Webb, Sylvia Crane and Mary Grace Tassone have been living at Atria Senior Living in Grass Valley, California for the past year
Four California women have been likened to the Golden Girls after reuniting in a senior living community 75 years after they attended school together.
Joan Harris, Elsie Webb, Sylvia Crane and Mary Grace Tassone have been living at Atria Senior Living in Grass Valley, California for the past year.
The four women all graduated from Mount Saint Mary Academy in the 1950s and went their separate ways pursing careers and families, including 12 children between the four of them, reported Good Morning America.
Crane was the last of the group to move into the living community in July and said she felt a sense of relief at seeing her friends familiar faces.
‘When I came in the dining room, all three of them were there, it was a nice feeling,’ she said.
Harris moved in this past May and said she immediately recognized Tassone sitting in the lobby.
‘They were friendly faces in a strange place, friendly faces that I knew who they were, and I knew their backgrounds,’ Harris said.
‘I didn’t have to explain anything that happened in my life, they already knew it.’
Tassone has lived at Atria Senior Living the longest of the group, for the past three years.
The women meet up for different activities like movie nights and musical performances, as well as reminiscing about their school memories.
‘We talk about different things from high school,’ Crane said. ‘Like, we had a little, old nun and she made root beer every night. And every noon time, she would bring the root beer out of the cellar, and ring a little bell and we all had our quarter for our mug of root beer.’
The women told CBS Sacramento they meet at the dining table three times a day.
Harris said, ‘It’s nice to know somebody here. It really is. Somebody who knows you a little bit and what you’ve been through.’
‘Hang on to the friends you have because you don’t know how long they are going to be here.’
Their living situation is reminiscent of the hit TV show The Golden Girls, about four single older women living together Miami during in their golden years.
Starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Estelle Getty and Rue McClanahan, the sitcom was an enormous hit and ran for seven seasons between 1985 and 1992.
Inspired by the iconic show, the Sacramento friends said they like to call themselves the ‘Silver Girls.’
Golden Girls icon Betty White died on New Year’s Eve 2021, just weeks shy of her 100th birthday, and she was the last of the hit show’s four leads to die.