The Secret to Reaching 100 Years
If people, like wine, get better with age, some of our neighbors are approaching magnificent. Paradise Valley Estates was thrilled to celebrate a bumper crop of five 100th birthdays in 2020.
With the pandemic’s ban on large parties, an event this monumental called for a parade. So, one summer day, cars and golf carts motored by their residences, with horns tooting, balloons bobbing and voices cheering the honorees.
Also celebrating joyous milestones in 2020, were five residents turning 101, and one each celebrating their 102nd, 103rd and 104th trips around the sun. Finally, there was the “grand marshal” of our centenarian celebration, who celebrated her 106th birthday in 2020.
In late 2020, our community’s centenarians took time to share their favorite memories, “secrets” of longevity and other life lessons.
As for their most memorable moments, the centenarians recalled these times of their lives:
- Traveling with his wife to various places around the world.
- Telling her future husband when he proposed to, “first get a job!”
- Swimming, singing, and dancing during summers spent with friends and family at Russian River.
- Being at an internment camp at Gila, Arizona, during World War II.
- Giving birth to twins and going on 31 cruises.
- Living through the Dust Bowl.
- Being at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 while her husband was in California getting more planes for Pacific duty.
- Surviving all three theaters of World War II because “no one shot me.”
When asked to share their secrets for living so long, our centenarians provided some advice:
- Do what you can, how you can, when you can.
- Just luck. I never thought I would make it to 100!
- Be active.
- Exercise, eat healthy, and take your vitamins.
- Live a relatively easy life.
- Live here at Paradise Valley Estates.
- All your concerns go away, eventually.
- Like people; that helps. God and prayer keep my life going, even through troubles.
- Keep breathing.
Our spate of recent 100-year celebrants (and 100+) prove that life and the food are so good at Paradise Valley Estates that no one wants to leave!
