Three Smithtown Octogenarian Women Dorothy Chanin, Carolyn DeHart, Peggy Micciche Living Life To The Fullest

By Stacey Altherr

Women have seen many changes through the decades, from getting the vote with the passage of the 19^th amendment in 1920 to the Equal Opportunity Credit Act of 1974 which prohibited discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, sex, age and marital status for credit transactions. (That’s right. Women could be denied credit because of their marital status before 1974). 

Sandra Day O’Connor was chosen by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 when he promised to name a woman to the next Supreme Court opening. And Title IX, which opened up equal access to women in high school sports, or risk withdrawal of federal funding, helped young high school female athletes rise to the ranks for high-performing and higher-paid professional athletes.

These three Smithtown women, all octogenarians, have seen the frustratingly slow progress for women through the years, and are still active members of their community. Here’s their stories.

Peggy MiccichePeggy Micciche*, 85, St. James, was always an adventurer and athlete. After college, she and two friends traveled two months through Europe, and another time, she spent two months camping out in national parks cross-country. 

“The best trip was when I bicycled along the Danube River,” she said. “We started in Germany and ended up in Vienna. It was 35 miles a day.”

A retired math teacher and director of the math and computer department in North Babylon, the St. James resident said that changes happened in the early 80s when North Babylon hired Dr. William Leary, originally from Boston and who oversaw the city schools there during the busing racial riots. Leary, much to the chagrin of many of her male colleagues, chose women for administrative roles for the first time, including Micciche as department chair. 

The biggest change over the decades, said Micciche, is women’s sports. When she was playing basketball in the 1950s, women wore uncomfortable uniforms, could only play on half a court, and there were only four schools that had a girls basketball team.

Title IX changed things for the better.

“No one came to the games,” she said. “Boys had leagues, and everyone came to the games. Before Title IX, women and men did not have equal rights in sports.”

In 1953, Micciche was elected president of the General Organization, the school’s student organization at the time. Both the vice-president and secretary-treasurer were also girls, and it was so unusual that it was an all-female slate, that a local newspaper wrote a story about it.

During her high school years, few girls went into math and science, like herself. Most went to secretarial school and got married, she said. 

Peggy in her 70’s with friends on a bicycling trip in EuropeAt a monthly assembly, there would be a bible reading and a reciting of the Lord’s Prayer at her public school, despite the separation of church and state contained in the First Amendment, and it was very unusual for unmarried women, such as herself, to own their own home.

Even on the golf course, there were disparities. Women couldn’t tee off until later in the morning so that men could play first at many private country club courses. 

She is happy to see the changes for women.

“The world is open to them now,” Micciche said. “They can be doctors, go to college and to law school—in fact, there are more women than men in college now.  They can be vice president of the United States.”

*Apolgies to Peggy for the misspelling of Micciche.

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For Carolyn DeHart, 81, Nesconset,  her life has been about the music. She played violin all through high school and wanted to be a music teacher, but changed her mind and became a nurse when she “saw a very handsome doctor” on a TV show. While studying nursing, she fainted on the bed of a patient, she said, and realized hospital work wasn’t in the cards for her.

Instead, she concentrated on her first passion- music- and studied piano under three different concert pianists, including one from the Julliard School of Music.

DeHart wanted to further her violin studies but was married with a young child. Soon, the marriage was over, and she started teaching piano lessons at home to make ends meet. She met her husband Ronald DeHart, also a piano teacher, and they have been making beautiful music in their home ever since. Married now for 49 years and after raising four children, the couple still teach music.Carolyn and Ron DeHart

“We started a real home business,” she said. “At one time, we had 120 students between us.”

DeHart says that working from home with her husband shielded her from much of the struggles young women her age endured in the workplace, but her success shows what can be accomplished with a passion and a plan. 

“We are down to 45 students now,” she said. “People may still see me as a role model because I am still teaching. I work out every day. And I still practice my instruments for an hour-and-a-half every day.”

She is now teaching grandchildren of her original students, helping many get into NYSSMA and even playing at some of their students’ weddings.

“Music is my greatest joy,” she said. “It gives back exactly what you put into it. I think that is true of a lot of things.”

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Dorothy ChaninDorothy Chanin, 82, Kings Park, worked as a technical assistant in the Natural Sciences department at the western campus of Suffolk Community College, officially retiring in 2001, but staying on part-time until around 2019. Because she worked in labs, she was required to stay on top of changes in technology, which serves her well even now.

The Kings Park resident takes classes in photography and languages through Stony Brook University’s OLLI, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, which teaches non-credit classes to adults.  She takes Spanish classes, she said, because her son’s partner is Peruvian and she wants to be able to communicate with his parents since they don’t speak much English.

“I only want to learn basic stuff,” she said. “I want to be able to greet them and say, hi and how are you.”

While she was satisfied in her career, she notes that women have a lot more opportunities now.

“There are more careers available to them,” she said. “Some of the things I was interested wouldn’t have worked out then,” such as ballet. Her mother discouraged her, she said, because it didn’t seem practical.

Chanin’s love of photography was part of her way to document her travels when she was younger, she said.Hairy Woodpecker Now, she takes photos almost every day, documenting the birds in her yard.

Born in 1939 and growing up in Manhattan during World War II, Dorothy remembers the remnants of it, but said she couldn’t imagine we would be at the brink of war again.

“Now I see war again and I am horrified,” Chanin said. “I couldn’t imagine this would happen again.”