Fate and good fortune for Sayville's Kenneth Rehm's 100th birthday

Every summer, World War II veteran Kenneth Rehm’s five children, 12 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren look forward to his home cooking during their vacation on Fire Island.

The entire family only dines together during these annual weeklong getaways. But on Friday, they will all gather at the Sayville house Rehm built alongside his father in the 1950s for some home cooking to celebrate his 100th birthday, which falls on Thursday. Then on Saturday, around 80 guests will gather at Butera’s, a restaurant in Woodbury, for Rehm’s centennial birthday party.

He and his family will reflect on his century of life lived as a lover of food and family, while gaining an appreciation for fate falling in his favor more than once.

If there is anything learned he hopes to impart on his three generations of loved ones, Rehm said it’s "what I tried to give them all my life: love."

"You show love, you get it back," Rehm added. "They’re all going to be in town. ... What’s better than to come here and have another dinner?"

Born in Queens on April 3, 1925, Rehm moved to Holbrook with his parents and his younger brother, Norwin, at age 12.

Both his penchant for cooking and passion for sharing the results with others stems from Rehm’s mother. He recalled how during the Great Depression, "she would cook for us, and then save what was left. There would always be somebody at the back door."

Their backyard was a bounty of vegetables and livestock, so even despite rationing during World War II, "the table was always full."

After graduating from Sayville High School in 1943 with high marks, Rehm said he was drafted into the U.S. Navy as a storekeeper second-class responsible for cataloging the various aircraft and marine parts sent to Brisbane, Australia.

The assignment kept him away from the action, for which Rehm said he considered himself "very fortunate."

He came home from the war and pursued a career in accounting. He also had other bouts of good fortune.

About a year after returning home, Rehm said he and his brother saw his friend Barbara Elston and two other teenage girls "hitchhiking" along Montauk Highway in Bayport. The brothers scooped up Elston along with cousins Eileen Kelly and Joan Marpé in Rehm's 1942 Buick, and took them for ice cream before bringing them home.

Rehm would go on to marry Kelly on July 14, 1951. She died at age 86 in 2018.

"It was a great 67 years," Rehm said of their marriage. He added that a successful union through which two become one requires "practice" and "compromise."

His brother, Norwin Rehm, eventually married Marpé. Norwin died in 2022, Marpé died in 2024.

On Feb. 17, 1950, after a day of work and night classes at Pace University, Rehm hopped aboard an eastbound train out of Penn Station and sat next to his neighbor on one side of the first car. When his brother boarded at Jamaica, Rehm left his neighbor and joined Norwin on the opposite side.

Minutes later, the train collided with a westbound train. This infamous Rockville Centre train crash killed 32 people, Newsday reported at the time.

His neighbor was among those killed.

"That’s where I would have been sitting," Rehm told Newsday Tuesday at his home. "Then I decided that more than luck was with me."

After retirement, Rehm followed his father’s love of nature. A front yard pond is home to two foot-long koi fish he purchased 28 years ago when they were around 5 inches long. A walking path that encases a mass of perennials in his backyard leads to a bench beneath a cast iron arch.

Through his eyes, Rehm said his flowers resemble the cycle of life.

"They bloom and show their brilliance, and unfortunately there’s a time for which they have to go to sleep," Rehm said. "You’re born, you go to school, you thrive, marry, family, and then."