Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Parkland resident has a formula to get to 110
At 110, Bernie Nenner is one of Broward County’s oldest residents.
Every day, the Parkland resident does calisthenics, reads and quotes “The Godfather.” He has his original teeth, runs a library in the senior living community where he lives and makes sure to stay up on the news.
Dressed in a suit and bowtie, Nenner celebrated his birthday at the Aston Gardens senior community. He blew out five candles on his birthday cake at the party Sunday in front of a packed room of neighbors, Parkland’s mayor and two commissioners.
Party organizers also passed out pens with Nenner’s name and birthday on them to commemorate the event.
Nova Barrett, a health aide who has helped Nenner for the past six years, said she wasn’t surprised by the dozens of neighbors who came out to see him.
“He is so kind,” Barrett said. “He’s always helping someone.”
Bernard Nenner was born on May 4, 1907, in New York to Austrian parents. He grew up in Chicago, and his first job was a telegraph boy with Western Union.
He was born a year before the first mass-produced car, the Ford Model T, was made. His lifetime saw the start and end of two world wars, the Great Depression, the rise and fall of numerous dictators and the transition to a new millennium.
“He’ll be telling me stories starting with ‘Well a hundred years ago...’ and most people say that to exaggerate,” Barrett said. “But for him, it’s literal.”
Nenner worked on an aircraft carrier during World War II and traveled across the globe. He moved to Florida in 1950 and lived in Pompano Beach before starting a dry cleaning business and buying mobile home parks.
He was married to his first wife for 65 years before she died. He remarried in 2003 and was widowed again a decade later.
Today, he has a daughter who is 83, a son who is 88 and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Nenner’s family was not present for the party but had visited just weeks before, Aston Gardens staff said.
“Oh he is very sweet and wonderful,” said Liz Tomlinson, a singer who sang Nenner’s favorite song at the party, “My Way” by Frank Sinatra.
Barrett said she asked Nenner what has amazed him most in all his years of being alive so far.
“Cell phones,” Barrett said. “Or as he likes to call it, the ‘magic box.’ ”
But Nenner didn’t get to be 110 without some effort. He has a formula.
“No. 1, don’t smoke and No. 2 is don’t eat red meat,” Nenner said in between taking pictures with neighbors at his birthday party. “The rest is luck and the man upstairs.”