What’s it like to be 100 years old? Four Georgians share their stories

What’s it like to be at least 100 years old? Some super agers from metro Atlanta are still figuring it out as they go along.

Lillian Mortimer is a 107-year-old who dresses well and moves so fast that her senior-citizen daughter has difficulty keeping up with her schedule. Frank Stovall, 103, still volleys back pickleballs tossed by a friend, even without his walker, and rarely misses. William “W.T.” Robie was sharp into his 100s, but at 104 conversations are getting more difficult, depending on the time of day. Hilbert Margol, who worked until 93, is now 100 and still isn’t on even one prescription medicine.

Like fellow Georgian Jimmy Carter, who turns 100 on Tuesday, they are human time capsules who have outlived most, if not all, of their peers. They were children in the 1920s. Teenagers in the 1930s. They lived through World War II and were already middle aged when Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald’s. During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, some reached the typical age to collect Social Security benefits.

Now they are navigating life near the fringes of human longevity as a small but growing group of centenarians.

Credit: Robyn Hutson

’He told me how much he loved me’

A younger man came into Lillian Mortimer’s life at the assisted living facility where she lives in Cobb County. She was 104 then. A fellow resident, he was at least 12 years her junior. A tall guy, though not as tall as he used to be.

“I was really fond of him,” Mortimer said. They’d go on outings together. They’d watch TV and hold hands. He’d kiss her. “He told me how much he loved me. But it wasn’t enough.”

He didn’t resist when a family member transferred him to another place. He asked Mortimer to follow him. She didn’t. “I cried a little bit.”

One of the fastest-growing groups in the U.S.? People 100 and older

Now, a nice 100-year-old man across the way goes shopping for strawberries once a week and shares half of them with her. They’re friends. She laughs. “Life goes on.”

She never contemplated the prospect of living so long. Woodrow Wilson was president in 1917 when she was born in New Jersey. She grew up without a car, telephone, washing machine or television. But her family did have a radio. As a young woman she started working for $12 a week. She got married and had a daughter.

By the time Mortimer was 40 years old she could tell her youthful vigor was fading. She remembers thinking she’d probably pass away in her 50s.

She recalled bringing flowers from her church to a public facility housing elderly disabled people. All day long, the residents would be seated on chairs in hallways, isolated and often unnoticed. It was “the most awful thing.”

Mortimer and her husband eventually moved to North Carolina. They had a good and “placid” life, she said. “One thing I never did have was stress.” She didn’t work full time outside the home. She didn’t smoke, had only an occasional cocktail, exercised at a local Y. She had friends.

Then, when she was 70, her husband died of cancer. She soon discovered she could do many things she had never done before on her own, from paying the household bills to shoveling snow. She eventually met another man and they were close for 20 years before he, too, died. Eventually she moved to metro Atlanta to be near her daughter.

At the age of 99, Mortimer was diagnosed with colon cancer. Two doctors said she was too old to treat. A third doctor disagreed. She endured two surgeries in four months. The cancer never came back. She takes a thyroid pill, a pill for her heart and another for blood pressure. She has macular degeneration in one eye, but the other is fine. She uses a walker to feel safer. Occasionally her joints get stiff, but she said she feels healthy.

By the time she moved into assisted living five years ago she was already a centenarian.

“People now say, ‘I wouldn’t want to live that long.’ But when day after day goes by and you see that you have family and you’re happy, you still want to live,” she said.

She’s been able to see her two grandchildren grow into adulthood. She has six great grandchildren and can envision what they will be like as adults. She said she looks toward the future more than the past.

“Life,” she said, “is wonderful.”

Her daughter, Lynn Strickland, said her mother is driven to stay involved, remain busy and be around people.

About a year ago, Mortimer fell on a concrete floor and fractured her pelvis in multiple spots. She was in pain. She had thought giving up the independence of driving earlier was difficult. But after the fall, she struggled with relying on others for much more basic needs, like getting out of bed or going to the bathroom.

“A friend of mine said, ‘If you don’t eat the pain you are going to be in bed for the rest of your life.’ … That was the thing that got me thinking, ‘I’m going to fight this thing. I’m not going to let the pain kill me.’”

Now, her days are spent jumping from one activity to another: Bible study, po-ke-no games, watching films, reading, exercising in the assisted living facility’s small swimming pool.

Credit: Robyn Hutson

Earlier this year, she began taking painting classes for the first time in her life. It’s not something she thought she could ever do.

Scott McIntyre, who teaches the class, said he’s been struck by Mortimer’s determination, never giving up on a painting before the end of each session.

She doesn’t have a bucket list of things left to do. Instead, she said, she takes life a day at a time.

“The goal,” she said, “is tomorrow to get in a bathing suit and go in the pool … That’s the way you’ve got to live, too. You don’t have a guarantee.”

Age catches up

It took more than a century and a pandemic for age to finally catch up to William “W.T.” Robie.

“I’m a blessed old man to be 100 and something,” he said recently.

A year ago, he wasn’t in a wheelchair. Now, at 104 years old, he is.

Centenarian researchers say people who live beyond 100 often avoid many diseases until far later than most elderly people. But when centenarians do run into health problems at advanced ages, the downturn can be swift.

Robie’s memory and ability to hold a conversation on a recent day was spotty. At times, he still can share all kinds of details, according to one of his daughters. At other points he seems to have lost track of some of his history. Recently, for example, he forgot he fought in World War II and he served on D-Day.

For more than two decades, Robie was a business professor at what was known as Clark College in Atlanta, where he had gone to school as an undergraduate and been named valedictorian, according to his family. And for decades he owned a residential real estate agency as well as numerous rental homes around Atlanta. He mentored younger entrepreneurs and remained active with local business groups.

Not a bad turn for a man who grew up in the countryside near Milledgeville to parents who were sharecroppers.

His childhood was spent in a family home that had no indoor plumbing. For light they relied on lanterns and what he called homemade flambeaux, using Coke bottles filled with kerosene. He said he can remember the four “white boys” he played with in a local creek. All these years later, he can still rattle off their names. By 14 he had stopped going to school because there wasn’t a higher level school nearby that Black kids were allowed to go to.

Eventually he ended up in Atlanta, where he took night classes for high school. Then World War II loomed, and he joined the Army, assigned to a segregated unit of Buffalo Soldiers. He was, he said, a “top kick,” a first sergeant, the highest rank that he said a Black man was allowed to attain in the Army at the time.

After the war he earned his GED diploma, graduated from Clark and landed an MBA from the University of Michigan, his family said. He and his wife, who died years ago, had five children who lived into adulthood.

For much of his life Robie was physically active, said Katina Campbell, his youngest daughter. He swam and went on walks near his west Atlanta home. He smoked some and was a social drinker, but didn’t indulge heavily in either, she said.

The only time he ever landed in the hospital was at the age of 96, when he suffered a bad infection, Campbell said.

On the cusp of turning 100, he still lived independently in his own home, driving most mornings to a local McDonald’s, where he met with other men to discuss politics and the day’s events. The ritual began in his 30s, with daily visits to Paschal’s soul food restaurant on West Hunter Street, a legendary gathering spot for civil rights activists in Atlanta.

Campbell attributes that regular socialization for why her father did so well so long. “That kept his brain going. He was never one to sit and stay home, unless it was Sunday.”

But the COVID-19 pandemic quashed his routine. Restaurants shuttered their dining rooms. Robie hunkered down at home. The isolation took a toll, Campbell said. She noticed a rapid decline in her father.

Now, he has a regular aide with him. He doesn’t hear well. While he goes to events in the assisted living home where he lives, he doesn’t speak a lot to other residents there.

He can still get out of bed by himself and feed himself. Just in the last year he has begun to rely on others to help him dress because he can’t stand without holding a walker. His daughter sees him still getting enjoyment out of life. He delights in seeing his 12 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

And, sometimes, he surprises people.

Several months ago, Robie broke a policy at his assisted living facility: He sat in the front lobby while still in his pajamas.

Staffers fetched J. Mack Willis, who owns the assisted living facility with his wife. Willis offered to have someone help Robie to his room, assist him in getting dressed and then return him to the lobby.

Willis recalled that the elderly man asked, “Where is it that I live?” Willis patiently gave the facility’s full address. Then carefully added that Robie lived “right here.”

Robie looked down at his clothes. “And whose pajamas are these?” They are yours, Willis remembered replying.

“He said, ‘Let me get this straight: I’m at home, and I’m in my pajamas. What is the problem?’”

“My response was, ‘There is no problem, sir,’” Willis recalled. “I was beat hands down.”

’I was known as a workaholic’

Hilbert Margol loved to work. So he kept at it, starting and running businesses until he finally retired on his 93rd birthday.

Now 100 years old, he told his wife during their 75th wedding anniversary last year that he knows she put up with a lot over the years as he traveled the nation opening furniture and mattress stores.

“I was known as a workaholic,” he said. “I was the first one to the office and the last to leave. I just enjoyed what I was doing … I never realized how many years I would last.”

Most people don’t.

His identical twin brother and business partner, Howard, retired in his 70s, grappled with serious health issues and died at 92.

Margol takes no prescription medicine. He swallows a baby aspirin three times a week as a doctor first told him to do decades ago. And, at his wife’s insistence, he takes a couple B vitamins daily. The most serious medical issues he faced, he said, was appendicitis as a boy in the 1930s and surgery for a cyst near his spine, maybe in the 1950s.

He was one of a shrinking number of World War II veterans available to attend this year’s 80th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion. He still occasionally gives presentations to school kids and to civic and religious groups about what he witnessed fighting in the war, including how he and his brother were among the first U.S. soldiers to encounter Dachau, one of the Nazis’ most infamous concentration camps.

The kids often ask how he’s lived so long. He tells them: “Don’t drink. Don’t smoke. Don’t do drugs. And hope and pray that you got the best genes from your parents.”

Credit: Bill Torpy

In his 80s, Margol would walk 2 to 4 miles nearly every day. Now he’s down to about a half mile a few times a week. He said he drives short distances every so often, despite his kids’ objections. He wears hearing aids and he’s lost strength in his hands. His wife, who is five years younger, has taken over opening stuck lids on bottles and jars.

But theirs is still a good life, as he describes it. He’s often reading on a computer. Every three weeks he joins other men, most in their 70s and 80s, who gather at a local restaurant to chat. And he gathers with families in his Dunwoody neighborhood to discuss interesting topics. Mostly, he said, he listens more than he speaks.

He cherishes times with his wife, friends and his three children, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

“I enjoy going and getting out of bed every morning,” he said.

Credit: Robyn Hutson/AJC

’The luckiest guy in the world’

At 103, Frank Stovall’s day often begins gloriously.

He calls Agnes Benson, the 91-year-old woman he has referred to as “the current love of my life,” who lives in the high-rise condo unit next door to his in Sandy Springs. She heads over with two cups of coffee. They check the digital thermometer — its giant digits easier for him to see — and, if the temperature is hot enough, they go out on his balcony to sit side by side on a bench, holding hands while they watch the sun rise.

“It’s beautiful,” Benson said. “We don’t talk about anything argumentative.”

“He’s a Republican. I’m a Democrat,” she explained.

Credit: Olivia Bowdoin

A middle-aged friend, Jane Waterman Moss, heard this and interjected some nuance. “You can teach an old dog new tricks,” she said. “He has changed his mind substantially on big things.”

She mentioned that he’s now “pro-reproductive rights” and “not in favor” of the previous president.

In his 90s, while walking up a hill, Stovall felt a tightness in his chest and went to see a doctor. He ended up with heart stents. A few weeks back, he took a bad fall on the concrete at a swimming pool where he went to get some exercise.

“I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” Stovall likes to say. “I had so many good things that didn’t turn bad.”

Like when he served in the Navy during World War II. The destroyer he was on picked up survivors of another ship attacked by an enemy submarine, but his own was never hit. He wrote that he lived through the Great Depression and survived nearby fires, tornadoes, floods and dust storms. His sister died in a car crash at the age of 16 when she was riding in a rumble seat. A brother who was a heavy smoker passed away many years ago.

Stovall was married for 67 years to a “wonderful wife” before she died more than a decade ago. Then, after “two very lonely years,” he met Benson.

“We had a need for one another,” he said. She said she considers him her closest friend.

Benson helps make sure he’s fed well. The tower where they live is a 55-and-older community, but it isn’t assisted living.

For years he astounded people with his physical prowess late in life. At 93 or 94 he water skied. He excelled at tennis, often besting younger competitors. He was still playing at 100.

Waterman Moss, a longtime friend and fellow tennis player, recalled that at 98 or 99 Stovall had a knee replacement. “Frank was back on the court after about a month. He is tough as nails.” She visits with him once a week now to toss pickleballs for him to volley back. He stands, without his walker, and concentrates. “I feed him 50 or 100 balls, and he doesn’t miss any.”

Credit: Olivia Bowdoin

Stovall grew up in Atlanta’s West End neighborhood in the 1920s. After World War II and college he worked as an engineer at Lockheed, eventually retiring in his 60s.

Stovall has guesses for why he’s lived so long. He said he’s an optimist and didn’t have much stress in his life. He thrives being around people. He didn’t smoke. Didn’t drink. Was raised eating nutritious food. Always liked physical activity. And he had relatives who lived into their 90s, and one aunt who died at 101.

“I don’t have a very exciting life now, but I have a good life,” he said, adding that he naps a lot.

He also goes to church. And he heads to the exercise room in his condo building to ride a stationary bike for at least 10 minutes, five times a week. Two women usually meet him there. “Oh, they are young,” he said. “They are not more than 80.”

He started a club for neighbors to talk about some of their memorabilia. He launched another group for people to play a card game called Manipulation. Initially, he invited only people 95 and older, but he’s expanded it to any residents in his condo building.

He has aches. He’s lost much of the dexterity in his fingers, so calling from his cellphone is difficult now. So is writing, something he had enjoyed. Now his kids help write out checks as he directs them. His eyesight is going, so reading is challenging, even with a magnifying glass. His hearing and stamina are diminished.

“I’m ready to go anytime, but I’m not anxious to go,” he said. He also doesn’t want it to be preceded by, in his words, “a long, bothersome illness.”

He’s got something else in mind: “I would like to live life to the end … ”

Editor’s note: This article has been corrected to note that Woodrow Wilson, not Calvin Coolidge, was U.S. president in 1917.

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