Old Soldiers’ ‘Last Man’s Club’ Down to Lonely Survivor, 89

Fifty-one years ago, Bob Swain and a dozen World War I buddies formed a “Last Man’s Club,” agreeing that the last one living would drink a bottle of French champagne that they encased in a glass coffin.

The bottle now belongs to Swain, but he can’t bring himself to drink it.

“It’s too damn lonely,” the 89-year-old veteran of the trenches said Friday, a day after the funeral of the club’s second-to-last member.

Swain said the 13 made their pact July 11, 1934, at Antioch, a river town about 50 miles northeast of San Francisco. They always met on July 11 to celebrate one more year--”and take each other’s pulses.”

At meetings, members would sit around a table with 13 chairs. At each death, the chair of the departed was tipped up against the table, he said.

“I don’t think any members missed a meeting as long as they lived,” Swain said. “Gee, we used to have a lot of fun. I sure hated to see it end.”

Swain lost his last fellow member with the death Tuesday of 87-year-old Jack Little, a war hero whose honors included the Presidential Citation.

The last man credited his long life to a good home and his wife of 61 years, Dorothy. He also gave credit to his ancestry. His mother lived to 97, and one of his sisters is 101, the other 95.