Man reflects on life as a centenarian

Living to be 100 is still considered newsworthy in most places. Prestige Assisted Living announced that within the last month, three of its residents have turned 101.

One of those residents, Wilbur Hauth, talked last week about the decades he’s lived, and what he hopes for down the road.

Hauth was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1915. He was working for U.S. Steel as a machinist apprentice at age 18 when World War II began. As news of the war spread to home, Hauth joined the Navy and traveled throughout hostile areas on a patrol torpedo boat.

After the war, he went back to work at U.S. Steel and eventually become a foreman. He worked there for 44 years and retired in 1976. He likes to say he’s “really taken the company for a ride on pension.”

He and his wife moved to Mesa, Arizona, after retirement. They spent 15 years traveling and golfing until his wife died in 2007, after more than 60 years of marriage. Soon after, Hauth moved to Somers to be close to his son.

His apartment today is simple. A Bible and morning devotional sit on the table by his recliner. A quilt his mother made covers his bed.

In a recent interview, here’s what Hauth had to say about his life.

Q: What has surprised you in the last year?

A: Nothing really, not a lot can surprise after the first hundred years.

Q: What do you hope for the next year?

A: Honestly, I hope the good Lord takes me out of here. I’ve had a good life; I was active my whole life. My wife and I traveled quite a bit after I retired and we saw a lot. There’s been no major disappointments other than my wife’s death. I miss her. I’ve had a good life. But it’s hard to be active at 101 — it gets boring.

Q: What do you think has intensified during your lifetime?

A: Politics. Oh, yes, politics. They have changed completely all the way down the line in my estimation. There was too much trash brought up in the (presidential) elections. You watch them on TV, they were always off battering one another, but they didn’t bring the real issues of the presidency up. People’s rights and things that would encourage people to do things in our country wasn’t (forefront).

Q: What was the best decade of your life?

A: My 40s. Investments I made came true and I was able to buy a beautiful home, a fishing home right there on the water in the southern part of Ohio. It was strictly a fishing community. And I had my own boat, the wife and I did. And our two boys came up to visit in the summers. That was the time I enjoyed the most. I accomplished a lot and I had the freedom of being out in the open everyday. It was on the edge of the woods. When I went out fishing, my wife was always with me.

Q: If you were 20 again for a day, what would you do?

A: I’d probably go fishing, because I enjoyed it very much.

Q: What’s your favorite activity today?

A: When the weather’s right, my son takes me out on a drive through the mountains. I love the pine trees and the lonely roads. He retired recently from the Forest Service, and he knows all these places out of the way where nobody gets to go. And that’s where we go, we travel in this wild country.

Q: What suggestions do you have for upcoming generations?

A: Be ambitious. Try for something better all the time. If you’re in a job you don’t like, leave it, because the good Lord put us on this earth for a reason, we should enjoy ourselves — I always tried to do that. I was happy with what I was doing. I enjoyed my work although it was very demanding and it took a lot of my Sundays away from my family, which I didn’t enjoy, but I liked the work. And the big thing is to be active, that’s the big reason for my being here at 101 years.

Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at khoughton@dailyinterlake.com.