Reaching that centennial birthday: More hitting century mark than ever before

Feb. 28--Harriet Judson credits her poor vision for reaching 100. Unable to drive, she walked everywhere she needed to go.

Beatrice Harray, also 100, insists "Only the good die young. I must have been bad."

And a 108-year old at O'Connor Woods tells Kimberly Baumgarten, the facility's registered nurse and health clinic manager, "God forgot me."

Whatever the reason, more individuals are reaching the century mark than did so in previous decades or generations.

In the U.S. and other industrialized nations, centenarians occur at a rate of about 1 per 6,000 according to the New England Centenarian Study. When the group began its study in 1994, the rate was one per 10,000.

Whether future generations will live as long or longer remains to be seen.

"Statistically, this last year was the first year that the age expectation dropped a little bit," Baumgarten said.

Baby boomers have led different lives from long-living Greatest Generation members. They grew up eating processed food and experimented with recreational drugs, and Vietnam War veterans were exposed to toxins during the war.

Because living to 100 is a recent phenomenon, as is quality life into the late 80s and 90s, the study of geriatrics is relatively new, Baumgarten points out.

In a book called "The Blue Zones," author Dennis Buettner reports those places with the highest percentage of people living longest are in the Mediterranean, the Rain Forest of South America, Japan and Loma Linda.

"What the four cultures have in common ... is a largely vegan diet, except in Loma Linda, which is the headquarters of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, which part of its doctrine is (faith-based) health and nutrition," Baumgarten said. "They also share a small amount of alcohol a day, a great sense of community, people tend to have a faith base and something in their daily activity has core body (movement)."

Baumgarten has found few links among the centenarians she knows.

"When I talk to anybody 90-plus and ask them the secret to life, the only thing I found as a consistent pattern is oatmeal for breakfast and it doesn't matter if they are positive or grumpy, they stay connected to other people," she said.

Judson stays connected living at Plymouth Square Retirement Community in Stockton. The multistory building is on Madison Street on the spot where her family home stood and where she was born on Sept. 17, 1916, as Harriet Kientz.

Her dad had moved to Stockton from the foothills to attend business school. Her mother was from Niles. They met when her dad was staying in Niles to oversee the finances of a plumbing project his Stockton company was hired to do.

Edward Blaine Kientz had the home on Madison Street built in 1912 for his bride, a teacher. Harriet was 3 when her dad took an accounting job with a San Francisco company and the family moved to San Leandro.

The Depression cost him that job in 1931 and the family moved back to Stockton in 1936 when he purchased a business from a man who insured farms.

Harriet, who'd graduated from high school in 1934 and begun college at San Jose State, enrolled at Stockton College and graduated from College of the Pacific in 1940. She was in the same class as her younger brother, having missed a couple years of school because of finances.

"I wanted to teach, but I couldn't get a credential in California, and I couldn't get a driver's license, so how could I go anywhere else to teach?" said Judson, who studied math and speech.

Born with congenital cataracts, Judson was hindered professionally until World War II.

"It's a heck of a thing to feel fortunate about, but it was the war that gave me my chance," Judson said. "The Air Force didn't look to see how people looked or what they did."

Workers were needed and Judson spent 4 1/2 years at Stockton Field as head of the officers' pay section of the finance department.

"In 4 1/2 years I missed 1 1/2 days of work, I was so grateful to have a job," Judson said.

The job ended with the war. By then she was married to Paul Judson, whom she met at Stockton's USO when she went with a friend to serve coffee and visit with soldiers stationed in the area.

Not long after, she received a check for $445 from the Air Force for unused sick pay.

"We used it to buy furniture for our new house," Judson said.

They built a home on Vine Street behind the home her parents had purchased when they returned to Stockton in 1936. It's where they raised their daughter, Sue.

Paul Judson, like Harriet's father, was an accountant and insurance man. Harriet Judson volunteered at Plymouth Square, which her Congregational Church had helped establish and was later employed by the facility.

The Judsons were part of a couples bridge group that played every other Friday night for some 40 years. Paul Judson passed away in 2000.

Harriet Judson remained in the couple's home until three years ago when she collapsed and doctors put in a pacemaker. She's been at Plymouth Square since.

She spends most days with her neighbors, sharing meals and participating in activities. She doesn't play bridge anymore, just bingo.

She credits her longevity, which was celebrated in September with a party coordinated by her daughter and niece, to good genes and all the walking she did. Her mom lived to age 99.

In 100 years she has seen major changes and historical events. The first she really remembers was the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 by Japan. But she also remembers the atomic bomb, the landing of man on the moon and the invention of computers, which she uses to email and Skype with her daughter in Minnesota.

The most amazing change?

"The way people travel," Judson said. "My mom drove to school in a horse-drawn carriage."

That's what stands out for Harray, who turned 100 on Oct. 2 and lives in the same Stockton home she bought in 1943.

"The change over from the horse and buggy stage to the modern, that's the biggest change I can imagine," Harray said.

She also remembers seeing a "white blob" on display at the 1937 World's Fair at Treasure Island.

"They said, 'This is plastic. You'll be eating out of this. You'll be doing everything with this. They'll be making clothes out of this,' " Harray said. "That was pretty amazing."

As a little girl growing up in Ripon, she would run outside to see planes fly over. Later, she would travel by plane and train and car to all 50 states and across Canada.

Harray was raised on a small ranch that initially had no electricity. She remembers getting their first radio in 1927.

Harray graduated from Ripon High in 1935 and attended Humphreys School of Business in Stockton.

She became a career working woman, spending 33 years at a title company. She married Wesley Harray, also from Ripon, in 1943. They never had children.

Harray took up painting in the 1960s and gave it up for a time to nurse family members, including her husband, who died in 1980.

For her 100th birthday, celebrated with a party for nearly 100 people at the Stockton Golf & Country Club on Oct. 2, Harray completed 17 paintings of flowers and landscapes and held a drawing and gave them away to her guests.

Harray doesn't know why she's so active and healthy at 100.

A calcium deficiency has caused numerous broken bones as an adult. The last two -- a broken hip and then a broken leg -- resulted in stays at Meadowood Health and Rehabilitation Center in successive years.

Otherwise, she's been healthy. Maybe it's the vitamins she takes, Harray said. She has taken lots of vitamin C her whole life and started taking others in her 40s.

She doesn't look 100. Her skin is smooth and soft and she moves easily around her home with the help of a walker.

Her mind remains sharp. She still plays pinochle and she wrote out her life story, longhand -- she hasn't figured out computers and doesn't want to -- to share at her 100th birthday party.

"I've been going over my whole life history in my mind," Harry said. "The best event in my whole life was the 100-year celebration."

-- Contact reporter Lori Gilbert at (209) 546-8284 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @lorigrecord.

___

(c)2017 The Record (Stockton, Calif.)

Visit The Record (Stockton, Calif.) at www.recordnet.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.