They're 100 and counting
SAN DIEGO, California
At last count, according to the U.S. Census, 84,000 people in this country have reached that milestone. By 2040, that number is expected to skyrocket to 580,000.
Margaret Bly, 105, and Philip Boyles, 103, live in the same College Area senior health care center. (Peggy Peattie / Union-Tribune)
The Gerontology Research Group in Los Angeles – the recognized authority on the oldest people living – doesn't even start tracking seniors until they reach 110, said Dr. L. Stephen Coles, a former gynecologist who co-founded the group.
No one in San Diego County is on Coles' list of 82 “supercentenarians.” Frederica Maas, who appears to be San Diego County's oldest resident, is a year away at 109.
Frederica Maas, shown in 2001 when she was 100. (U-T file)
Maas is the second-oldest person in California, behind Gertrude Baines of Los Angeles, who at 115 is the oldest person in the world, according to the Gerontology Research Group. In November, Baines, the daughter of slaves, made news when she cast her vote for Barack Obama.
For most of her life, Freddie Maas was a leader, one of the first female Hollywood screenwriters, and she published a book just before she turned 100.
This summer in the Union-Tribune's Passages section, readers were asked to submit names of “super seniors,” people who were well over 100. Among those were Maas, 106-year-old Dottie Allen of Imperial Beach and Margaret Bly, 105, and Philip Boyles, 103, both of Talmadge.
Dottie Allen turned 106 last month. (Peggy Peattie / U-T)
And they are all characters in their own ways.
Philip Thomas Boyles: Born July 6, 1906
Philip Thomas Boyles, the baby of the bunch, was born in London. He spent most of his life chasing fortunes and dreams, he said, from here to Australia. And, “just to keep me out of mischief,” he added, he worked all kinds of jobs from log hauling to sheep herding.
But Boyles remains a God-fearing, quick-witted free spirit who loves to make people laugh.
“How do you feel at 103?” he was asked recently.
"With my hands,” he replied.
Boyles is also asked for the secret to his long life.
“I don't know,” he said. “I was married for 71 years, and suddenly I lost my wife in a (freak traffic) accident four years ago. I was devastated, but I kept on, leaving my life in the hands of God – maybe that's it.”
Margaret Bly: Born Nov. 27, 1903
Margaret Bly lives in the same Atria Collwood senior health care center as Philip Boyles, who jokingly calls her his sister. Bly was the fourth of nine children raised on a farm in Wisconsin. She motored out to San Diego for her first husband's health at the start of the Great Depression in 1929.
Bly did a lot of work in the local fish canneries and at Ryan Aeronautical. She outlasted two spouses and remembers the Depression as the toughest era through which she's lived.
“It was by far the worst,” she said. “There was no money, no job, no place to live for a lot of people – people didn't know what to do.”
Like her friend Philip, Bly maintains a good sense of humor and isn't afraid to poke fun at herself.
When her deafness made it difficult for her to understand a question during a recent interview, she said, deadpan: “I get confused – hey, I am getting older.”
She, too, said she made it to her advanced age by believing in God.
“And doing a lot of sleeping,” she added with a chuckle.
Dorothy 'Dottie' Allen: Born July 11, 1903
At Sun & Sea Manor nursing care center in Imperial Beach, Dorothy “Dottie” Allen makes it a point to remain active, moving around the facility on regular jaunts with the aid of her walker.
Born in Washington, D.C., Allen has outlived three husbands, including the father of her only child. That husband was a rear admiral, for whom Dottie took a boat trip to Shanghai to marry.
“She made it known to my father, too, that she had to be married the day she stepped off that boat – and she was,” her son, Charlie, said, laughing.
Dottie Allen lived much of her life as a housewife, moving to San Diego 65 years ago at the end of World War II. She recently began struggling with the early stages of dementia, but still likes displaying her whimsical side.
Soon after her son notes her age and her condition, she turns to him with a feigned look of seriousness: “I'm not 106 – how old am I? One hundred and six? (OK) I'm 106.”
Allen who drove until she was 94, said she is uncertain what specifically helped her reach old age. But, “I sleep good, I eat good, I dance a bit and I enjoy” living.
Frederica Maas: Born July 6, 1900
These days at the Country Villa La Mesa Health Care Center where Frederica “Freddie” Maas lives, relatives like her niece Phoebe Simpson do much of Freddie's talking for her. The elder, born in New York City, prefers to sit silently in her wheelchair with her eyes shut even while eating.
Simpson, who visits daily, said her aunt once told her that keeping her eyes closed and getting a lot of sleep was her secret to reaching old age.
But in her salad days, Maas never seemed to slow down, writing scripts for classic silent films in the 1920s, including “The Plastic Age” (1925) and “Dance Madness” (1926), both starring Clara Bow, and “Flesh and the Devil,” a 1926 drama with John Gilbert and Greta Garbo. She strove to maintain her integrity in a male-dominated industry and was recognized throughout Hollywood as something of a maverick.
Maas' 316-page autobiographical “The Shocking Miss Pilgrim: A Writer in Early Hollywood” – a decade in the writing – was hailed by film history buffs as a priceless first-hand account of a golden era in movie-making. Maas called the opus her final artistic triumph.
On the day she reached the century mark, she declared: “Being 100 isn't a great thing anymore – a lot of people are reaching 100 these days. But when you get there, you don't want to be bothered with idle chitchat and things that don't matter.
“You're quite content to sit back and just enjoy each day . .
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