Published in Senator Digest on May 2006.

The State Department of Elderly Affairs (DEA) is honoring centenarians and their contributions to society in May in observation of Older Americans Month.

“When you stop and think about the thousands of years of living history that centenarians represent, we begin to realize that their experience and wisdom are gifts to be treasured,” Corinne Calise Russo, the DEA  Director told Senior Digest.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the 2000 population count found 1,048,319 persons residing in the Ocean State. The data also revealed that 75,718 of those residents were age 75 and over. But, for those reaching age 100 and over, the number literally falls in the hundreds, a demographic milestone few will reach.

For the past 29 years, the DEA has been charged with organizing the annual Governor’s Centenarians Brunch, an event to celebrate people who have lived to be age 100. Over the year, the DEA’s brunch for the state’s oldest old has become the centerpiece of the agency’s celebration of May as Older Americans Month, says Russo.

In the early years, the Governor’s Centenarians Brunch was held in the State Room at the Statehouse.  In later years, the brunch was moved to community-based locations because of the climbing number of centenarians who were able to attend.

Six times, one of the oldest-know Rhode Islanders, Sam Goldberg, 106, has attended the Governor’s Centenarians’ Brunch with his elder peers, all who either reached age 100 that year or who have lived over a century.  Last year DEA organizers had located and invited 250 Rhode Islanders age 100 and over.  Only 50 attended the brunch. They expected the attendance for this year’s even to be around 60.

Goldberg, a resident of Village of Waterman Lake, Greenville, was born in 1900 in Lodz, Poland. Like many people at that time, his father came to the United States first to work to support his family.  Later, in 1907, Goldberg, his mother, two brothers and two sisters would come over and live, reuniting with their father.

During 1916, Goldberg worked in Hartford, Conn., at a company making ball bearings, for automobiles.

With the outbreak of World War 1, a recruiter in Atlanta signed him up in the United States Calvary. Little did the recruiter know that Goldberg would be one of the few remaining World War I veterans alive in 2006.

Goldberg was not destined to see battle oversee. He would be stationed in San Antonio, Texas, assigned to “guard the boarders against the bad guys.”  During his 17 months in the Army, he would also patrol the 40-mile boarder in Hachita and Columbus, New Mexico. “It was like police work,” remembered Goldberg.

After the Army stint, Goldberg returned to civilian life, working at Willy’s Overland Cars in New York. In 1922, he relocated to work at the company’s Providence dealership.  He moved to the city’s Elmwood neighborhood.  Goldberg has lied in the Ocean State for 84 years, was married for 76 years and raised three children.  He worked all of his life in the car business and said he became a partner at Hurd, a Cranston-based auto dealership, retiring at age 70.

While many people remember the destruction brought about by the Hurricane of 1938, it brought in lots of business in Goldberg’s Chrysler car dealership located on Reservoir Avenue in Cranston. “It increased our business because insurance companies paid to fix cars damaged by the storm,” he said.

Goldberg also remembered the days when Providence was populated with a large number of jewelry companies with thousands of workers.

“You had industry here. You have nothing like that now,” he says.

Why are more people living past age 100?

According to the New England Centenarian Study at the Boston University Medical School, centenarians are the fastest growing segment of our population. The second fastest growing segment is people age 85 and over.

The study started in 1994 has generated data that sheds light on the nation’s oldest old.  The BU Medical School’s website noted that centenarians have many characteristics in common.  Few centenarians are obese, and men and nearly always lean. Those individuals were never heavy smokers, and they could handle stress better than most.

Meanwhile, the study found that women centenarians had a history of bearing children after the age of 35 and even 40.  Researchers say that it is probably not the act of bearing a child in one’s 40s that promotes long life, but doing so may be an indicator that the woman’s reproductive system is aging slowly and that the rest of her body is as well.

The study also found at least 50 percent of the centenarians have first-degree relatives and/or grandparents who also achieved very old age, and many have exceptionally old siblings.  The data indicates that many of the centenarians’ children between age 65 and 82 appear to be following in their parents’ footsteps with marked delays in cardiovascular disease, diabetes and overall mortality.

DEA Director Russo says,” Each year (at the Governor’s Centenarians’ Brunch) we ask centenarians that age-old question,” What is the secrete to your longevity?” Their answers are varied as the personalities involved, but they all contain basic themes.  Stay active and alert.  Stay connected to family, friends and the world around you.  And most of all be grateful for each day and the joy it brings.

Goldberg seems to fit many of the predictors for living over age 100 that have been identified by the New England Centenarian Study. He is lean and never was obese. He never smoked either. But when questioned about his longevity, he laughed and said,” I keep breathing. You take in air.” Maybe his longevity is tied to a good sense of humor, too.