Two weeks ago, dark clouds seemed to be forming on the horizon for the family of Mary Jane Hastings.

The 99-year-old tested positive for COVID-19 after coming down with what at first seemed like a cold.

A week prior, Hastings’ brother Joe Maid, 98 — her last surviving sibling of five — succumbed to the respiratory illness, whose victims overwhelmingly are elderly.

“We were scared to death,” Linda Hastings, one of Hastings’ eight children, said of the diagnosis. “It was our worst nightmare.”

A resident of Sage Harbor at Baywinde in Webster, Hastings is in great overall health for someone her age. She’s lost a lot of her hearing, which poses day-to-day challenges. But she also has mild chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, and Linda and her siblings thought that if, like her brother, Mary Jane got COVID-19, “That would be it.”

Surprise. Not only did Hastings recover after a 10-day stay at Highland Hospital, she’s back at her assisted living facility, where she’s returned to focusing on such mundane, everyday matters as when she’ll be able to get a haircut again, and on Thursday marked her 100th birthday.

“She really is remarkable,” Linda said of her mom, who lost her husband of 49 years, N. Lee Hastings, nearly three decades ago and until she was in her late 80s volunteered at St. Ann’s Home in Irondequoit, where she’d push residents around in their wheelchairs — many of whom were younger than Mary Jane and accused her “of going too fast,” Linda said with a laugh.

A massive birthday party had been planned for Mary Jane — who is a native of Rochester’s Maplewood neighborhood and in her younger days modeled for Eastman Kodak — with children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews flying in from all over the country.

Sadly, that had to be scrapped. But Linda, Patty and their siblings were determined to celebrate the century mark in a big way, even if from a distance.

So family members put together a video of birthday messages for her to watch. And on Thursday afternoon, after cake is served, she’ll be surprised when a convoy of cars driven by loved ones who still live in town, along with a Webster fire department truck, parade past her assisted living facility.

“We want to make as big a deal of this as we can,” said Linda Hastings, who lives in Orlando but since March has been stranded in California, having traveled there to visit her own grandchild. “I’m so sad I can’t be there,” she said by phone, her voice choked with emotion. “We’re just trying to make this special, just so she understands that this family that she devoted her life to is there.”

Said Fink, who lives in Penfield, “She’s going to be blown away. It’s going to be really sweet.”

And at the rate she’s going, said Hastings, “We’ll probably be able to have that big birthday party at this time next year.”

— DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE