On Wednesday (31 July), Signore celebrated her milestone birthday at the Bartow Community Centre in Coop City surrounded by more than 100 friends and family members. And whilst she was eating cake and mingling with her guests, she got candid about the secrets to her remarkably long life.

“If they have exercise, I do the exercise,” she told CBS of the community where she lives. “If they have dancing, I dance. I still do a little dancing. After my lunch, I will play bingo.”

The Italian-American was born in a year filled with social and political revolution. President William Howard Taft was in office and Woodrow Wilson won the November presidential election, the British passenger liner RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, and motorised film cameras marked a new era for Hollywood.

And while her personal life has spanned many decades of change and upheaval, Signore credits her single relationship status as the key to a long, happy life.

“I think the secret of 107…I never got married,” she remarked. “I think that’s the secret. My sister says, ‘I wish I never got married!’”.

Long life is a generational gift for the Signore family, as her sister has already reached the grand age of 102, while her mother lived to the age of 97.

“She doesn’t take any medicine! I’m 107 and I just take a high blood pressure pill, that’s all,” she continued.

This totally badass 107-year-old woman has the secret to long life: “I never got married”