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Secrets Of The Long-Life Ladies
Tribune photo by VICTOR JUNCO
Eight residents at John Knox Village were honored with a dinner celebrating their long life as many of them are more than 100 years old. The women were served salad, steak with vegetables, and a dessert.
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Published: September 5, 2008
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Maybe it's no surprise that nearly a dozen women at St. Joseph's John Knox Village in Tampa have reached or are about to reach their 100th birthday. More Americans are reaching the century mark than ever before. Two years from now, about 130,000 centenarians will be in the United States, almost double the number from in 2000.
Researchers who study how people live to be very old say there are common traits. Besides being lucky enough to have long-lived relatives, centenarians also show signs of "aging slowly." Most are able to function well on their own late in life. Being able to live independently at age 90-plus is an important marker. They also escape chronic illnesses like such as heart disease.
Could there be other secrets? Here are the stories of three women at John Knox.
Euna Brown, age 101
Predictors of living to 100: good at handling stress; lived independently in her 90s; healthy into old age
Brown has kept the same apartment at John Knox since she moved there in 1983. She is still in the block of apartments where residents live on their own.
Despite being hard of hearing, Brown can carry on a lively conversation when asked about her long life. It's a tale of a woman with a
quick mind who had a talent for finding opportunity and being self-sufficient.
Her parents lived long lives, but nothing like Brown. Her father died at age 81, her mother at 75.
Brown has outlived all of her close relatives. She never remarried after losing her husband in a car accident in 1947, and she didn't have children. Her last surviving sister - there were six girls in the family - died in 1983.
She was a nurse in a Kansas City hospital and remembers when the hospital got the region's first iron lung machine. The mechanical
innovation encased polio victims like a coffin but kept them alive through artificial breathing. Nurses cared for the patient by reaching through the machine's porthole.
After her husband's death, Brown moved to Washington, D.C., where she was hired to be the department head of housekeeping services at Walter Reed Hospital. She later moved to Houston to become the executive housekeeper at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where she retired in 1972.
Her favorite pastime was travel - she made trips to all 50 states and Europe and through the Panama Canal.
"I'm interested in a great many things," Brown says. She joined volunteer committees when she first moved to John Knox from Houston at age 76, and also served on the board of the Florida Life Care Residents Association.
It's the kind of post-retirement recommended for healthy aging: Stay connected and involved; energize your mind.
Three years ago, Brown broke her hip and wrist, which slowed her down. She enlisted the help of a caregiver, who visits five days a week for four to six hours. They do things like such as take walks or go to movies at John Knox.
On July 12, they went to Macaroni Grill to celebrate her 101st birthday.
Glendora Brown, 104
Predictors of living to 100: lived independently in her 90s; no health problems into old age; family history
Shiny balloons saying "Happy Birthday!" decorate Glendora Brown's side of the small room where she lives in the John Knox nursing center.
Her 104th birthday was Aug. 21.
Her son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter brought a big cake to share in the dining room. Brown had told them not to make a fuss, but likely would have been disappointed if they didn't.
"We think she's very proud of her age," says her daughter-in-law, Kay.
Brown was born in 1904, a farm girl in Idaho in a big family. There were five sisters, including her twin. Longevity runs in the family - one sister lived to 100-plus - but genetics can't always overcome life circumstances. Brown's twin died after having surgery when she was only in her 60s.
Brown became a schoolteacher and had her only child, Jim, at age 25. Later, she worked in immigration in San Francisco. The job included occasionally escorting people back to Mexico.
In retirement, Brown and her husband sold everything and went to Europe.
Like most who reach 100, Brown was independent long into old age. She lived on her own in a mobile home community for seniors in California and was the caretaker of her elderly sister.*
Brown's son and his wife flew from Tampa every year to visit. She moved to an apartment at John Knox after she turned 90. There, she could be near Jim, Kay and granddaughter Jan.
It wasn't until she was 103 that she needed to leave her apartment and go into assisted living at the complex. Then she fell in February and moved to the next level of care, the nursing center. Nothing was broken, but she needs a wheelchair and help getting in and out of bed.
Brown is very hard of hearing but life remains interesting. She watched all of the Olympics - her longtime passion has been watching sports on TV, especially baseball - and she doesn't miss a bingo game or social event at the nursing center. She still gets her hair done every Wednesday.
She has no special secrets to share about growing so old. "I lived like everybody else," is what she says.
Her daughter-in-law speculates that such long life is a family thing. Brown's son will be 79 this month. Kay says Brown also took care of herself. She always went on long walks, favored health food and baked her own bread.
Margaret Schlaerth, 99
Predictors of living to 100: lived independently in her 90s; no chronic health problems into old age; family history
What helped: gave up smoking early on
Throughout her life, Schlaerth has looked younger than her age, and at 99, she still does. Her hair is soft white, cut in a short bob with bangs, the same hairstyle she favored in middle age. She wears a wide silver bracelet, watch and necklace.
The effects of being very old haven't passed her by - but they haven't kept her from living on her own in an apartment at John Knox. She needs a walker and has trouble hearing, especially in a noisy place. She is legally blind from macular degeneration, a sight-robbing condition found mostly in the elderly.
Far from feeble, she values her independence. It is a lifelong trait.
So go ahead, ask the question: How did she live so long? The reply: "I think I chose my ancestors well." Her mother lived until 88, her father to 91. In the family tree, there is an 18th-century female ancestor who survived past 90.
Schlaerth, an only child, grew up in Minnesota and Buffalo, N.Y. She married her husband at age 30 and had a son and daughter. It was when her children were little that Schlaerth left a burning cigarette on an end table. The cigarette singed the wood. She gave up smoking after deciding cigarettes and small children shouldn't mix.
The table is in her John Knox apartment, next to the sofa. It still has the burn mark - the evidence in a good family story. Maybe it's a symbol of her luck in longevity, too. According to research, few centenarians were big smokers.
Today, she attends an exercise class at John Knox that includes light weights. She says she watches what she eats, goes to the doctors and does what they tell her.
She and her husband, John, moved from Buffalo to Zephyrhills in 1978. She told him the move would be worth it if they lived another five years. She thinks about how that was 30 years ago. John died in 1995; they were married for 57 years.
Her son, John, lives is Los Angeles. Her daughter, Barbara, is in Pittsburgh. She has nine grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. They keep in touch. Last year, a grandson took her along on a family trip to Walt Disney World.
Healthful Habits Can Last A Century
The New England Centenarian Study at the Boston University School of Medicine has identified common traits of people age 100 or older:
* Few are obese.
* They rarely smoked a lot.
* They may handle stress better than average.
* Many have no significant cognitive changes.
* Many centenarian women had children after age 35 or 40, which could be a sign of aging slowly.
* Exceptional longevity runs strongly in families; at least half of centenarians have long-living siblings, parents and/or grandparents.
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