Of all the measures of America’s aging population, none is more intriguing than the rising number of centenarians. The U.S. Census Bureau counted 35,808 people 100 years and older in 1990-double the number 10 years ago-and there could be 1 million by 2080, given the expanding population and longer life expectancy. But that’s just the Census’s best guess: arriving at an exact count is surprisingly difficult. More than 106,000 people listed themselves as over 100 on the 1970 Census; then researchers noticed how easy it was to confuse the box on the form for a birth date in the 1860s with that for the quarter between January and March, and discounted more than 100,000 of them (chart).
The Social Security Administration lists roughly 32,000 centenarians on its rolls, including some with impossibly high ages. “We know dang gosh well these people aren’t 150 years old, but as long as they could prove they were at least 65 when social security started 40 years ago, we don’t make them prove exactly how old they are,” says press officer Phil Gambino. SSA conducted a “roundup” of centenarians in 1990-contacting each one personally-and found only 84 unrecorded deaths, netting savings of $1.9 million. Even the White House can be duped in it’s effort to send birthday greetings to very old Americans. White House volunteers rely on friends and families to request greetings, and don’t try to verify them. Recently someone obtained a card for a “best friend” - a dog, allegedly 100 in dogyears.
Whatever their exact numbers, human centenarians are the focus of increasing research. Women over 100 outnumber men about 2 to 1, according to a 1987 National Institute of Aging report. Roughly 80 percent are white, though proportionately more blacks live to be older than 105. About half reside alone or with family members; more than half didn’t go to high school and some 90 percent have incomes under $5,000 a year. The odds against living to be 100, the NIA noted, have dropped from 400 to 1 for people born in 1879 to a mere 87 to 1 for those born in 1980.
What’s the secret of living so long? David Wekstein at the University of Kentucky’s Sanders-Brown Center on Aging studied 546 centenarians and found that most had a close relationship with a spouse, a child or a nursing-home staffer. Most had upbeat outlooks on life - and many had avoided caffeine, alcohol and tobacco." It’s as if they read the books by the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society and lived their lives accordingly," Wekstein says. Others, however, defy the conventional wisdom. “I never took any medicine. I took Scotch, 95 years, every day of the week and I never was drunk,” declares Harry Schneider. In his 1990 book " One Hundred Over 100," author Jim Heynen profiled some centenarians who had recovered repeatedly from cancer; some were chronic worriers some weighed 245 and many had spent their lives helping others. Ruth Inez Austin, for example, became a career social worker after being arrested in a 1920s garment-workers strike for hitting a policeman with her muff. Even those less physically able were still creating good will around them, Heynen writes, “with their simple, unadorned presence that says ‘Behold, I have endured’.”
Another unscientific measure of the century club’s growth comes from NBC’s “Today” show, which has been airing birthday wishes to Americans 100 and older since the mid-1980s. Willard Scott now gets about 50 requests for greetings every daydouble the number five years ago. “We’ve had people who crossed the country in covered wagons, and some were older than the state they were born in,” says assistant Kay Mannello, who verifies each birthday close to air time to guard against untimely deaths. Not infrequently, viewers write to say they recognized a distant relative they had assumed was dead.
Centenarians offer explanations of their longevity as varied as their life stories. Claire Willi credits her exercise regime: “Stand straight-it’s very important.” Henry Neligan, a British sailor who survived two shipwrecks, told Heynen: “Keep your feet warm, your head cool, your bowels open and trust in the Lord.” Robert Coulter, 106, who came from Ireland on the Lusitania and spent 30 years on Ford assembly lines, credits his parents. “If you plant a strong plant,” he says, “it grows.”
