Lansdale woman Peg Leichthammer celebrates 106th birthday
Told after 1942 car crash that she wouldn't live more than 20 years
As Margaret “Peg” Leichthammer celebrated her 106th birthday March 23, she said she was surprised to have reached that age.
“I have never done anything special, maybe keep extremely active,” she said as a party with fellow Elm Terrace Gardens residents was being held.
“I think one of the most important things is to have family, friends, faith in some kind of religion — you must believe something in order to get to 106 in my opinion — and I think it’s so important to read and keep your mind active. You’ve gotta have laughter. Laughter is very important in life,” Leichthammer said. “It’s all important. It all makes a big picture. It all comes together.”
Born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1916, Leichthammer said she ate a lot of fruit and vegetables and had a good upbringing with no real childhood problems.
In 1942, a man trying to kill another woman deliberately drove into a car in which she and Frank, her husband-to-be, were riding, she said. With no seat belts in the vehicles of the day, both were thrown out of the vehicle.
“I landed on my head which maybe is why I made it to 106 and still talking,” Leichthammer said with a laugh.
Her ankle was crushed, the woman who now has a fused foot said.
“I can walk with a fused foot,” she said. “It just makes it a little more difficult, but the more difficulties you have, the more you have to learn to do.”
Leichthammer said she was in Bryn Mawr Hospital for three months following the crash.
When she was discharged, “They said I had about 20 years to live because I had so many injuries,” she said 80 years later.
She and Frank were married in the hospital while both were patients with injuries from the crash, she said.
“They just decided to keep their wedding date in spite of the accident,” said daughter Peg Domber, a New Jersey resident who grew up in Norristown where her parents lived for about 50 years.
Her father, who had a broken back, was flat on his back at the wedding, while her mother was in a wheelchair, she said.
“She was in a nightgown in a wheelchair, he was in silk pajamas,” Domber said.
Leichthammer has two children, six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
She lived in an independent living apartment in Elm Terrace Gardens for 27 years before moving in January to skilled nursing, Domber said.
“She’s mentally very alert. She’s interested in so many things. She stays up to date watching television, engaging with her children and grandchildren and great-grands and making friends with people and being interested and listening to them,” Domber said. “I think that’s part of the secret. You gotta stay active and involved and care about people.”