While at work, Carol Spelman will sometimes pull out her phone and open Words With Friends. The Scrabble-like app is always available to her, whether she's travelling, at home or in a meeting.
But while people sometimes give her strange looks for pulling up an online game board at times when it might seem out-of-place, Spelman laughs it off. "It may look like I'm playing a game," she says. "But I'm actually talking to my mother."
Josephine Manfredi, Spelman's 96-year-old mother, is a worthy opponent when it comes to Words With Friends, ensuring that the game never gets boring. The pair plays daily, the end of one game immediately leading to the start of another, and Spelman estimates that this has been going on for five or six years.
"Oh, at least that," Manfredi agrees.
All in all, the pair has played around 550 games of Words With Friends in the past few years. But while they enjoy playing every day, Words With Friends is more than just a game for Manfredi and Spelman. The mother-daughter duo uses the app to communicate, writing messages to each other on the game's "chat" feature, which Manfredi calls the "chat sheet."
Tess Halpern
Manfredi's husband and Spelman's father, Thomas Manfredi, passed away in 2006. Spelman is an only child so, as she put it, "Right now, it's just us."
Manfredi lives in Southwick, so she is close to her daughter who lives in Longmeadow, but Spelman works in research and development for a biotech company -- a position that requires a lot of travel -- and it is sometimes difficult for her to visit her mother.
Manfredi is also hearing impaired, so it can be hard for her to talk on the phone. The easiest way for the two to communicate is through writing, but "we're not going to write letters to each other," Spelman laughs.
The two occasionally email, but Manfredi doesn't check her account frequently, so that method takes too long for a back-and-forth conversation.
And they would be able to text on a cellphone, but to do that Manfredi would need to have one. She insists that she doesn't need "one of those fold-y things" because she has Words With Friends.
Tess Halpern
Around six years ago, Spelman downloaded Words With Friends on Manfredi's computer and they started playing for fun. Five-hundred and fifty games later, the app is their way to connect with each other.
They send an average of around five messages back and forth through the chat every day, but even if Spelman is busy, they are sure to send at least two messages daily -- one saying hi and one saying goodnight.
But while the mother-daughter pair has found a way to stay connected, they realize that it's a unique method, especially when considering Manfredi's age. Not many of Manfredi's peers that live in her building even have computers, and she doesn't know anyone else who plays Words With Friends.
In fact, Manfredi said that a lot of her peers "don't want to be bothered" with computers, but she insists that if she can do it, so could they.
"I'm no genius," she said.
Except, her daughter points out, she kind of is.
At 16 years old, Manfredi graduated from high school. "That's what they did in those days," Manfredi said of her early graduation. "If you were a bright little kid, they'd skip you a term or a whole year."
She went on to earn a full scholarship to Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, a small Catholic school for women. She graduated cum laude in 1942 in a class of 70 women, and she was one of only three students who graduated with a degree in math.
After graduation, Manfredi ended up working for Providence Mutual, an insurance company in Philadelphia, within the actuarial department. She calculated premiums and dividends -- "pretty routine work," she said. "But it was working with numbers which I liked."
After three years, Manfredi started working for Johns Manville, an insulation company, before getting married. When her daughter was 11 years old, Manfredi went back to work at the Franklin Mint, a business that makes commemorative coins and medals. She worked there until she retired, at which point she settled down as a housewife.
"Boom, exciting career," she laughed.
Tess Halpern
But while Manfredi was busy with those jobs, her two peers from Chestnut Hill who also majored in math were working as programmers at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania. They tried to coax Manfredi to work with them on their project, but she turned them down because she didn't want to work overnight shifts.
That project that Manfredi's friends were working on, and the project that Manfredi turned down, was programming the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) -- the first fully-functional digital computing device.
Manfredi's former classmates saw an ad for female mathematicians soon after they graduated. They got the job, which entailed two weeks of day work alternating with two weeks of night work, and so on. "That didn't suit me," Manfredi said. "But if I had [joined them], I would've been in on this ENIAC."
Her friends ended up being two of the six women who programmed the first computer. Men built the ENIAC, and are solely credited with the invention, but the women were the ones who made it work.
"There weren't any manuals, or directions, or anything," Spelman said. "They figured out how to program this giant computer all by themselves without any guidance. It's mind-boggling."
The computer was introduced in 1946, and it filled an entire room. Both of Manfredi's classmates went on to marry men from the project.
Today, Manfredi enjoys the fruits of their labor.
She will turn 97 on Dec. 7. In 2012, she went to her 70th college reunion, one of only five of her classmates to attend. One of the five has since passed away.
But Spelman says that Manfredi is just as sharp as she was 25 years ago.
She lives in an independent-living apartment in Southwick (not assisted living, she is quick to point out), and she leads a very active life. Manfredi sings in the choir, plays rummikub and is a "card-reader" when playing Trivial Pursuit and attends concerts, parties and most of the special events offered in her development.
Tess Halpern
But Spelman believes that, above all else, playing Words With Friends helps to keep her on her toes. After all, even though the pair started playing when Manfredi was around 90 years old, she has won 40 percent of the games they've played.
And Spelman insists that she doesn't cut her mother any slack. Manfredi's average game score is 317 and she once reached a score of 491. She's played 12 words worth over 100 points each and has played 5,656 words that the app considers "unique."
More importantly, no matter what time zone Spelman is in, she can connect with her mother on the game, making sure that she is OK. Manfredi can message her daughter when she is busy and be sure that she'll respond when she has the time.
"It's almost like having a conversation, you know? If she needs something at the store, she'll tell me," Spelman said.
"You feel connected in a way that's not intrusive into all-day life."
Tess Halpern
Sitting at her desk, Manfredi considers her next move. "What do you think? Should I swap? There are only nine tiles left," she says, mostly to herself. It's near the end of the game and she is stuck with six vowels and only one consonant -- her options are limited.
On the side of the board, the "chat sheet" is open. Yesterday, Manfredi told her daughter that she sent a picture to someone named Jess before saying "G'nite !" Today, Spelman reminds her mother that she'll be coming over around 12:45, after the carpet cleaners finish up.
On the board are words like "zeds," "peewee" and "plebs," but the word "ermines" stands out.
"Oh, that was my word," Manfredi says, incredulous that I don't know what it means. "It's a type of fur."
She takes her turn, deciding to go with the swap, but sighs when she ends up with another "U."
"It's all about the tiles," she says, with a shake of the head.
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