Election 2024: At 101 Years Old, Voting is a Must for Wiltonian Phyllis Tousey

The first time Wilton resident Phyllis Tousey cast a ballot — in 1944 — she voted in a presidential election that saw Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Thomas E. Dewey vying for the White House. FDR shocked everyone when he won by a landslide — and made history by being elected to a fourth term.

Now, at the age of 101, Phyllis just voted for president for the 21st time, in what’s likely to be another historic election.

Politics has been something of a mainstay in Phyllis’ life. “My family was very involved in politics in Jamestown, NY, where I grew up,” she said.

In fact, Phyllis said politics was very much a part of everyone’s lives at that time. She recalled that Robert H. Jackson was also from Jamestown, and he went on to be the chief prosecutor for the United States in the Nuremberg Trials before being appointed as a Justice on the Supreme Court.

Phyllis moved to Wilton in 1954 and got involved in municipal government when she became the assistant to Wilton Tax Collector to Edith Gerhart in 1977. She later served as the town’s Tax Collector until 1992, and it was under her leadership that the town’s Tax Office moved from using paper and pencils to computers.

Voting also used to be done with paper and pencil, something Phyllis recalls from the first time she cast a ballot. She saw voting eventually move to machines — coincidently made in her hometown of Jamestown, NY — and now back to paper ballots but with a scanner that can read a marker.

“The election process is more business-like now,” Phyllis said about changes she’s witnessed.

She used to help out with elections in Wilton, working at the polling places. “So I know how important volunteering is at the polling sites,” she said. Voting in the 2024 election brought back memories. “It was exciting to revisit that part of my past in politics.”

She also remembered often going to Orem’s for dinner after voting. At one point town officials wanted Phyllis’ husband to run for Wilton First Selectman, she said.

When Phyllis went to the Clune Center last week to cast her ballot in person, she was greeted warmly by the poll workers. “Everyone there was very helpful and excited about me being there,” she said.

Phyllis wanted to cast her vote in person, and she hopes that people today understand how important the right and responsibility to vote is — it’s “to guide the future of our country.”

Being informed and involved is advice Phyllis hopes everyone heeds — that and understanding history. “Most [people] don’t realize the seriousness of what went on and what’s going on right now.” 

“Contention exists in the whole world, not just in our country. Concern about not knowing what’s going on is happening in the whole world. We need the knowledge of all the past we’ve been through. I didn’t just read through all these things, I lived through it,” she said. 

Having seen so much history, Phyllis warned about the danger of history repeating itself if people take the right to vote for granted.

“If you’ve lived through the history that brought about things like communism and the World Wars, you see the processes as they happen and realize it can happen again if people don’t consider elections and voting to be important in choosing our country’s leadership.” she said.