USA: Toledo native dead at 111

. TOLEDO, Ohio (The Blade), September 30, 2008 A man who was one of the oldest in the country before his death this month first called Toledo home. Born in 1896, he lived mostly in N.J., was a lawyer. Walter H. Seward, who was born in Toledo but spent most of his life in New Jersey, died just shy of his 112th birthday. It’s unclear how many years he spent in Ohio before his family moved around and settled in New Jersey, but it’s where the record books say he was born on October 12, 1896. He was taught in a one-room schoolhouse, had a horse-drawn buggy that converted to a sled in the winter, didn’t think much of the Roaring Twenties, and saw three centuries during his time. ‘We have to be honest, he had good genes and a lot of luck,’ said his daughter, Marymae Henley of West Orange, N.J. He took care of himself eating fruits and vegetables and exercised regularly, but he also ate as much sugar, butter, and gravy as he could, Ms. Henley said. A proud graduate of Rutgers University in 1917 and Harvard Law School in 1924, Mr. Seward practiced real estate law through his 90s. ‘He really didn’t understand the concept of retiring. It just didn’t make sense to him,’ Ms. Henley said. ‘He never, ever thought of himself as old, so he never saw his opportunities limited by age.’ Mr. Seward, the great-grandson of former Blade editor Clark Waggoner, who served from 1856 to 1865, married late in life to Florence ‘Betty’ Gardner in 1961. They had two children: Jon Seward, now 48, and Ms. Henley, 45, and he was a grandfather to two boys. ‘He never really talked about saying we used to do things so much different,’ Ms. Henley said. ‘But I remember when [Neil] Armstrong first walked on the moon and it was the biggest deal. I remember as a young kid thinking, ‘Why is he waking me up in the middle of the night?’ But it’s particularly a big deal for someone who was around before cars.’ © 2008 The Blade