100 and Counting : Area’s Oldest Residents Told, ‘You Are Needed’

Four were too ill to go, one had died and one was so tired of getting awards for being over 100 years old that he wouldn’t participate in the “centenarian” luncheon Wednesday at Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel.

But an optimistic spirit was still very much a part of the American Centenarian Committee’s second annual luncheon to honor 12 Southern Californians for living more than 100 years.

“You are needed throughout the days, weeks and years to come,” Raphael O. Cordero, the committee president, who is only 36, told the seven honorees who attended--six on a dais and the one who stayed in the audience, not participating.

“He’s also the oldest living West Coast Harvard graduate and the oldest Presbyterian minister,” a committee official explained in behalf of 102-year-old Emerson Oldes Houser of Pasadena, who agreed to go only if he was left alone. “He’s had awards and recognitions until he’s ready to fall over.”

The other centenarians ranged from 101 to 105, including a laborer who grew up with Louis Armstrong, a homemaker whose white hair is still about three feet long and a former carpet salesman who said his longevity secret is eating a gallon of yogurt a week.

More Positive Image

The Burbank-based committee was formed a year ago, according to founder Jean Priestman, a Los Angeles convalescent home administrator, as a way to promote a more positive image of the elderly.

Cordero said census figures show that there are about 25,000 people more than 100 years old in the United States. The nonprofit group tries “to make a difference” in their lives, he said, through visits, small gifts and an “adoption program” for those who no longer have living relatives or friends.

When asked how he passed the time, Setrak Boyajian, a spry 102-year-old who retired from the carpet business, said, “Well, I don’t have much time to pass. I play backgammon all the time.” A widower, he lives in his own house in Hollywood, he said, taking daily walks and “making my own yogurt. I live on yogurt day and night.”

Helen Carter, 101, in a ruffled blouse, with long white hair beautifully coiled under a small black hat, said she lives alone in a mobile home in Sylmar. She takes pride in doing things for herself, like balancing herself on crutches each day to wash and fix her hair.

‘Just . . . Go Do It’

“It isn’t that I couldn’t have help,” she said, “but I want to be able to mentally take care of myself as long as I am here. Ambition doesn’t come in a bottle. You just get up and go do it.”

She believes that not drinking, not smoking and studying the Bible are important ingredients to long life.

Percy Washington, the 101-year old who grew up with Louis Armstrong in New Orleans, said he thinks hard work is important too. He worked right up until he moved into the Los Angeles nursing home where he now lives, he said.

He can’t remember how long ago that was, he said with a sigh. “I’m so old.”