New Haven Independent

Claybourne, an 81-year-old retired Yale-New Haven Hospital X-ray department worker, and Higgs, who is 91 and used to make airplane parts for Pratt & Whitney, grew up together in New Haven. Now they live on the same floor at Casa, Claybourne in room 513, Higgs in 510. They hang out a lot. They go on Casa trips to the casinos.

Wednesday they joined 100 of their neighbors at Casa, a mostly Latino community, for a festive afternoon filled with turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, stuffing, rolls, salad, rice and beans, and live music.

It’s an annual tradition inside the bright first-floor hall at Casa. “A lot of these people you don’t see from one day to the next,” Higgs noted. “They come down today.” Higgs has lived at Casa for 20 years, and she loves it. It’s safe, it’s fun, and it’s convenient to bus lines. A good place to spend the sunset years.

On Thursday, the two sisters plan to eat Thanksgiving dinner at a cousin’s house. A smaller crowd than Wednesday’s, those without relatives or outside friends to visit, will return to the Casa dining hall for another, smaller holiday dinner. Benjamin Mitchell will be among them. Mitchell, who has lived at Casa for 14 years, plans to help his church deliver 50 meals to people in the dining room, then go door to door to deliver 50 more meals to people bound to their room.

Mitchell (in photo) came to Wednesday’s celebration dressed in his Sunday best. He wore a black three-piece suit with a bow tie and a Deacon pin from Church of God on Beers Street.

Mitchell, who’s 78, worked years ago for the daily newspapers in Springfield, Mass., filing papers and preparing the old linotype machines. Then one day he banged his head against a metal chute. The accident left him blind to this day.

That was 58 years ago. He moved down here, got married. His wife passed on. He made money taking in boarders at his house in Hamden. But the roomers didn’t always pay, and he had enough of it. He sold the house and moved to Casa. He’s glad he did. Especially, but not only, on Turkey Day.