Women celebrate 74 years together on National Friendship Day

NILES, Illinois -- Sunday is National Friendship Day, a reminder to celebrate our friends.

There are group of ladies who met in high school and are now living in the same senior community.

"Did you ever think 70 plus years later? Never, we never thought we'd live this long!" said Florence Burgher.

They share 74 years of friendship and they are still going.

These are the ladies of Nago Nagams, a club they created back in the 1940's when they were all at Roosevelt High School in Chicago together.

"I imagine there must be sometimes when you are irritated one with the other, however, we decided that's not important, we decided what was important was true friendship," said Phyllis Dubow, one of the friends.

So the club got bigger, eventually reaching 24 friends total.

These four ladies remained friends through it all.

"We went thru tears together, we went thru laughter together, it's a lifetime," said Rochelle Schpak.

They graduated, got married, stood up in each other's weddings, had children, then grandchildren, some even great grandchildren.

Then the group began to get smaller, leaving behind the four that started it all.

Florence Burgher, Phyllis Dubow, Rochelle Schpak, and Eileen Kritzman, all in their 90's, are celebrating 74 years of friendship Sunday, on this National Friendship Day, and they can't imagine spending it with anyone else.

After all, they ended up in the same place, Brookdale Senior Living in Niles, Illinois, and have meals together every single day.

"When you are friends this long, it'd bound to stay," said Eileen Kritzman.

They say their bond remains strong because they are just plain nice people that still, after all of this time, love each other and enjoy each other's company.

"I can't imagine life without them," said Burgher.

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