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WWI Vet Had Famous Health For 108 Years

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Harry Landis died Monday at Sun Terrace Health Care Center in Sun City Center.

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By KAREN BRANCH-BRIOSO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 7, 2008

TAMPA - World War I veteran Harry Landis has died in Sun City Center at the age of 108, leaving 107-year-old Frank Buckles of West Virginia as the nation's last known surviving World War I veteran.

Landis died Monday at Sun Terrace Health Care Center in Sun City Center, his caregiver Donna Riley said. Until his final week, when he had trouble swallowing and left his apartment for Sun Terrace, the famously healthy Landis' only medication was eye drops for glaucoma.

"He only took eyedrops and a vitamin," Riley said. "He would laugh and say he always had a better immune system than just about all his family members. He said it had to do with eating fresh vegetables, growing things himself."

He was one of eight siblings who grew up on a family farm in Palmyra, Mo. Landis always downplayed his two months of World War I service. He never saw action. In fact, he never left his college town of Fayette, Mo.

After the war started, the 18-year-old enlisted in the Student Army Training Corps, figuring he was going to be drafted anyway. His service: mopping up after recruits suffering from influenza in a makeshift sick bay of a college dormitory, according to a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs biography.

Legendary Immune System

Even then, his immune system was legendary, the biography states: "Indeed the entire region was suffering from the Spanish influenza and because of his healthy constitution, Landis stayed on as nearly all of the nurses quit."

He joined the Army in October 1918. The armistice was signed Nov. 11, 1918. He was discharged honorably the next month. "I never actually left my college," Landis told the Tribune in an interview this past year. "They would send me with a mop and a bucket to clean the hospital floors. ... That was my experience in the military. Seriously, it wasn't much more than that."

His nephew, Bill Landis of Prescott, Ariz., said the family considered the renown earned by his longevity "a great honor." But his uncle didn't.

"That was him. Humble from the beginning," Bill Landis said. "He had to be the most humble man you ever met."

Riley, his caregiver for the last five years of his life, said that "he didn't understand why he became famous, because he hadn't seen action. But in his heart, he was proud of it. There were times when he would start talking, and he would go on and on and on about it."

Buckles - now the only known surviving World War I veteran - also was born into a Missouri farm family, according to his biography with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He did see the war in Europe as an ambulance driver in France. He got there by lying about his age to a recruiter. He was only 16.

Today, he lives on his cattle ranch in Charles Town, W.Va.

"He's doing great," said Barbara Norman, Buckles' caretaker. "I know he went out Saturday with some friends and had lunch, because he turned 107 on Friday."

Veterans Affairs spokesman Jim Benson said the department did extensive outreach to try to find the last of the nation's surviving World War I veterans: "We're pretty confident Mr. Buckles will be the last one. Mr. Landis was the next-to-last. I'm sorry to hear about Mr. Landis."

LeRoy Collins Jr., executive director of Florida's Department of Veterans Affairs, expressed sorrow at Landis' death. "He was the last World War I-era veteran in Florida, and with his passing we say goodbye to a generation," Collins said in a statement.

Although Landis missed out on action in World War I as a teenager, he tried to enlist for World War II in 1941. The 40-something would-be enlistee was rejected for being "too old," according to the Veterans' Affairs biography.

Teacher, Coach, Store Manager

In civilian life, he taught high school and coached football for a few years. Then he became a retail manager at S.S. Kresge Co. (Kmart's predecessor). He worked in Niagara Falls, N.Y., and Dayton, Ohio.

He lost his first wife, Eunice, to cancer. Landis' remains will be cremated and buried next to hers in Gower, Mo. There will be no services in Florida, Riley said.

Landis is survived by his wife, Eleanor of Sun City Center, who is 100 years old; two stepdaughters, Lois Logan of Bethel, Ohio, and Jan Fenwick of Los Altos Hills, Calif.; nephews Bill of Prescott, Ariz., Richard Turner of Hannibal, Mo., and Don Glasscock of Sebring Hills; and nieces Cathy Mitchell of Clarksville, Mo., and Mary Elizabeth Williams of Hammond, Ind.

Reporter Karen Branch-Brioso can be reached at or (813) 259-7815 or kbranch-brioso

@tampatrib.com.

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