Gallup’s Leap Year baby celebrates 25th birthday

Josephine O. Abeita at age 87 or 21 3/4

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer
Thousands of the residents of Anthony, N.M., are expected to come out today and celebrate Josephine O. Abeita’s 25th official birthday.

Also on hand will be a few of Abeita’s nine children, 42 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren, some of whom will be from Gallup, where Abeita and her late husband, Joe, lived for much of their adult lives.

At 25 Anthony years, Josephine Abeita has led a rich life and she also possesses a trait that Anthony residents really appreciate. For Josephine Abeita is a Leap Year baby, one of those who are born on that strange day every four years when the world adds an extra day to even out the calendar.

Anthony has embraced this day so much that the town calls itself the Leap Year Capital of the World and every four years, the townsfolk spruce up the main street and honor those people who technically have only one birthday every four years. The town located in southern New Mexico between Las Cruces and El Paso has been doing this every four years since 1988 when Mary Ann Brown, a Leap Year baby herself, founded the Worldwide Leap Year Birthday Club.

This year’s parade will feature Abeita as the grand marshal. Also on hand to honor her for making it to 25 Leap Years will be U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici.

One of her eight boys, Ernie Abeita, points out that not only has his mother weathered 25 Leap Year birthdays but has managed to celebrate 75 other non-Leap Year birthdays as well.

In those non-Leap years, he said, the birthdays would be celebrated on a weekend anywhere from Feb. 27 to March 3 so members of the large Abeita family could come from all corners of the United States and pay homage to a mother who, despite her age, was still making time for her favorite hobby — bingo.

Her husband worked at Fort Wingate in administration for 37 years before taking his retirement and then worked for another 25 years as a driver for the Gallup Fire Department. He died some 20 years ago shortly after he moved the family to the Isleta Pueblo where Josephine Abeita now lives with her daughter.

Most of the Abeita family aren’t surprised that Josephine has seen so many birthdays since her mother lived to celebrate 113 birthdays herself.

While she’s hard of hearing, she still is able to get around with a walker and her mind is still as attuned to the hustle and bustle of the Isleta bingo parlor as when she started going there in the 1980s. She still goes on a regular basis and plays 12 bingo cards at a time.

“The whole family is going to get together to celebrate her birthday on Saturday,” said Ernie Abeita, who added that his mother’s only request is not to have it last too long. The celebration will be in the restaurant of the Isleta Casino. “She doesn’t want to be late to her bingo game.”

When she isn’t playing bingo, he said, she’s doing crossword puzzles. “She can beat anyone in doing crossword puzzles,” he said.