Leesburg Resident To Celebrate 100th Birthday Oct. 24
Leesburg Resident To Celebrate 100th Birthday Oct. 24
Posted
Jennifer Peryam-jperyam@timesuniononline.com
Leesburg Resident To Celebrate 100th Birthday Oct. 24LEESBURG - Leslie Harrison will turn 100 this month, and his advice for a prosperous life is simple.
People should live everyday like it was their last and greet their neighbor every morning.
Harrison, Leesburg, will turn 100 Oct. 24. He was born in 1909 in DuQuoin, Ill., to Charles Harrison and Sarah Neville.
When asked if he thought he would live to see 100, he shook his head and said, "Oh, no."When followed up with a question of what has kept him going, he pointed to his daughter Pat Openheim, who lives in his Leesburg home with him.
He also attributed his health to getting exercise caring for his two twin 6-year-old Welsh Corgi dogs he got from a family friend.
Harrison has a caretaker, Betty Lambright, who makes meals for him in his home.
"He's special and will eat anything I put before him, and is not a picky eater at all," Lambright said.
Harrison has a pacemaker and gets around with a walker. He has glasses and has trouble seeing. He also has hearing aides in both of his ears. He has an elevator in his home to get to his second-level bedroom.
Harrison said he is looking forward to celebrating his birthday with family and friends at Tippecanoe Lake Country Club.
He will see his granddaughters and great-grandchildren he doesn't get to see very often because they live in different states.
Harrison grew up with four sisters, being the only brother and son in the family.
"I got all the attention, and my sisters didn't," Harrison joked.
He has fond memories as a boy hunting ducks, quail and squirrel in southern Illinois.
He graduated high school in 1930 and began to work for Kroger, DuQuoin, as a clerk and worked up to a managerial role in Elkville, Ill.
He married the former Dorothy Stanton, Pinckneyville, Ill., in 1936. She died in 1996. He said he met his wife at DuQuoin High School where they were students.
"I saw her skipping and whistling and knew I had to meet her, and I did," Harrison said.
His wife was a school teacher and they had two daughters, Pat and Jo Satterfield, Rapidan, Va.
When he started working at Kroger in the 1930s, he made 25 cents an hour in union wages. His dad worked in a coal mine making $5 a day.
"I never had a job I didn't like," Harrison said.
Harrison remembers customers had to have sugar stamps to purchase sugar and gas stamps to purchase gas.
In the 1930s, he said gas was 10 cents a gallon, a gallon of milk was 40 cents, and neckbones were 1 cent a pound on weekends and 2 cents per pound during the week.
Harrison owned and operated a Standard Oil Station in the early 1950s, and was active as a district governor in the Lions Club.
He went from the Standard Oil Station to E.T. Simon Construction Co., working on many major highway and bridge projects.
"I loved the sun and fresh air when I was in construction," Harrison said.
He then went to work for General Motors in the 1950s and built conveyor belts that car parts went on to be painted and assembled. He retired from GM in 1973 and lived in Florida, Kentucky and then Leesburg.
After his wife passed away after 60 years of marriage, he moved to Leesburg with his daughter Pat.
Pat said she isn't surprised her dad has lived as long as he has.
"He takes care of himself and is known for having a vegetable garden," Pat said.
Harrison shares the vegetables with his neighbors, and enjoys when the neighbor children come over so he can tell them stories by his fireplace.
Harrison said he has a neighbor who helps plant the garden that is behind his home, and he supervises the work. He also enjoys spending time watching Cubs games.
