CENTENARIANS ‘KEEP MOVING’
Group stays active through ‘civic duty,’ ‘living independently’
At a bustling San Antonio restaurant, Ofelia Gonzales’ family members leaned in close to hear her tell the tales of her 108-yearold life.
She recalled that her father, Nabor Martinez, rode with Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. Her mother, Maria Puente, was a teacher, she said. Gonzales told them she was a baby when her family traveled on a train from her hometown in the Mexican state of Durango to Texas, where she would marry and raise a family.
Her granddaughter Deidra Hagdorn, 58, sat beside her as cousins Sylvia Diaz, 59, and Lisa Gomez, 57, recalled spending time with Gonzales, a homemaker, when they were teens. She cooked hearty meals and kept an immaculately clean home. They remembered that after the work was done, she always took time to enjoy life.
Gonzales reminisced on carefree times when she’d kick up her heels swinging and jitterbugging on the kitchen floor. These days,
she sometimes uses a cane but still likes to sway to Spanish ballads and Motown oldies.
She has outlived seven of her 10 children and her beloved husband of 62 years — he “spoiled me like a queen,” she said, eyes glowing — as well as four of her older siblings.
Family members consider her a much-treasured living link to their ancestors and family traditions.
“We’re so blessed to have her this long,” Hagdorn said. “She’s one of the few ties I have to my mother and memories of innocent ways and childhood days.”
Gonzales credits three factors for her longevity: faith, eating right and staying active.
“I give thanks to God that I’m alive,” she said, slipping easily between English and Spanish. “I thank the Holy Spirit for what I have. It’s the best medicine. If you stop moving, you die.”
Gonzales is part of a growing number of centenarians in the U.S. A 2014 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most recent available, reported 72,197 people living in the U.S. who were 100 or older. But the number is expected to increase dramatically when the first wave of baby boomers starts turning 100 in 2045.
Born in 1910, Gonzales is two years short of attaining the title of supercentenarian, someone who is 110 or older. There isn’t a local agency that tracks the number of living centenarians and supercentenarians in the area, but the Bexar County elections active voter roll lists 439 people as being 100 or older.
Gonzales takes pride in telling a visitor that she voted in the 2014 general election and the 2018 primary and runoff elections, too.
Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacquelyn Callanen said seniors often call in and send messages to her office. She said officials take great pride in assisting older voters, though not all need it, such as the 99-yearold who walked in on his own, used the kiosk without help and thanked polling site officials for their service.
“For them, it’s a civic duty,” Callanen said of the city’s older voters.
She recalled how last summer, staff at the Copernicus Community Center polling site had a birthday party for 100-year-old Fern George, who hasn’t missed an election since the county started tracking voting records.
“That’s our privilege,” George said at her home near downtown. “Don’t mistake it; use it. Don’t gripe if you don’t vote.”
George is another San Antonio centenarian who still enjoys life. And working.
Yes, at age 100, George still has a paying job. With help from her son, Keith, 69, she takes orders for rubber stamps and business printing, a trade she learned in the late 1940s.
She and her late husband, Melvin, raised their three children to respect others, be sincere and trust in Jesus. Her handshake is strong and firm, just like she learned from her father, who believed in living an honest and upright life.
Her son said she’s energetic and busy and that’s what keeps her going. She said it’s because she has a good sense of humor and is nosy.
“My brother told me we have Roman noses, ” George said with a mischievous grin. “I said my nose roams all over my face and is always in someone’s business.”
Ozelle Jordan also is an active centenarian. She lives in Universal City with her son and daughter-inlaw, who dote on her, and they threw her a big backyard party with four generations when she turned 100 in November. Jordan loves a party, taking every opportunity to reminisce and chat about current events with family and visitors alike.
And she still enjoys cooking for her family and working in the garden.
“I like to take care of myself, do for myself all I can,” she said.
That independent streak cherished by many centenarians is what helps keep them moving.
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Dick Cole, perhaps best known as Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle’s co-pilot on the first U.S. bomber strike on Japan, agrees that staying mobile promotes a long life.
“The secret is you’ve got to keep moving like the sheriff is after you,” he has said jokingly.
When he turned 103 in September, he was still walking, more slowly and with a pronounced stoop, but still moving. He stood on his own power as friends, family and many airmen from Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph celebrated his birthday.
“I’m happy to be able to enjoy it,” he said later, smiling broadly as he sat in a leather chair in an outdoor pavilion, greeting scores of well-wishers.
At the regular family gathering at the restaurant in November, the wellgroomed, neatly dressed Gonzales told her granddaughters that by 65, she had sworn off smoking and alcohol and that she feels much better for it. Gonzales doesn’t eat fast food but does admit to having a hot doughnut once in a while.
Family members said the only medicine Gonzales takes is for cholesterol. The only major medical procedure she’s had came when she was 100 and received a pacemaker.
Each day she rises at dawn, drinks cinnamon tea at breakfast and acknowledges her blessings.
All four people are good role models for other upand-coming centenarians, experts say.
Dr. Nicolas Musi, director of the San Antoniobased Center for Healthy Aging, said their regimens mirror what a healthy centenarian’s lifestyle should be.
He agreed that remaining physically active is a major factor in healthy centenarians. Most don’t smoke and aren’t heavy drinkers. They are also mentally active, have regular social activities and thriving social networks with friends and family. Other factors include strong faith, having a sense of purpose in life and a positive attitude.
Located at UTHealth San Antonio, Musi’s center trains health care specialists and physicians in geriatrics and is the clinical branch of the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies.
“There’s a lot of interest in trying to find out ... genes linked to longevity and why certain genes are associated with longevity,” Musi said. “There’s also the possibility, if we address aging as a root cause of many diseases, then we can improve the aging process and attack diseases.”
The Boston University School of Medicine has studied the art and science of aging well since 1995. Its New England Centenarian Study found supercentenarians occur at a rate of around 1 per 5 million.
“People who live to 110 generally have a history of living independently, with very few age-related diseases,” said Dr. Thomas Perls, director of the ongoing study. “These are kind of the créme de la créme people, 110 and older, who have truly compressed both their disability and age-related diseases to the very end of their lives.”
Prior to 1960, people’s average life expectancy was 60 years, Perls said. He sees the large demographic of baby boomers as the reason for a huge number of centenarians rather than medical breakthroughs that help extend life.
For her part, George credits her longevity to having a sense of humor. When she walks into a local eatery, she greets the staff with a smile, and there’s never any talk of doom and gloom. The workers at the Dairy Queen near West Avenue and Blanco call her “Miss Hugs.”
“There’s good in everybody,” George said emphatically then added with a twinkle, “Sometimes you have to dig down to find it.”