Secret of Long Life? These Two Have Their Own Ideas : Centenarians: South Bay pair are among thousands of elderly Americans living beyond the 100 mark.

Forget about special diets or exercise. The secret to a long life, says centenarian Irene Wilson, is really quite simple.

“Just everyday living,” said Wilson, who turned 101 on Sunday.

At a birthday party thrown for her this week, Wilson was joined by Warren Hamilton, a fellow centenarian at the Torrance retirement home where they both reside. The senior citizens, each with their own prescriptions for longevity, are among a growing number of adults who are living past the century mark.

In 1980, there were about 15,000 centenarians living in the United States, according to census data. That number swelled to more than 60,000 in 1990. By the year 2000, more than 100,000 centenarians are expected to be living in the United States, according to census projections.

Carolyn Bowden, a spokeswoman at the D.C. Office on Aging, a Washington government agency that studies issues concerning the elderly, said improvements in the medical and public health fields have contributed to the increase. In addition, Bowden said, people are eating better and keeping fit.

“People are more knowledgeable about things that would encourage longevity,” Bowden said. “Most seniors say walking and staying active are important. A lot of intergenerational activities are especially good. It keeps them young.”

But Wilson, who has outlived many of her three relatives, said she has shunned health food in favor of cakes, cookies and other favorite pastries.

Wilson was born in Hanover, Ill., on Oct. 11, 1891--when Benjamin Harrison was President and a horse-drawn buggy was the primary means of transportation.

“Everybody had a buggy,” she said. “The first cars, we used to laugh at” because they were so odd looking, she said.

She was raised in San Jose on her father’s farm, where she first spotted Halley’s comet in 1910. When the comet made its next pass in 1986, Wilson was among those who had lived to see it a second time.

“She remembered it as having looked much bigger,” said Wilson’s son-in-law, Hayward Thomas. Wilson has a 70-year-old daughter, Phyllis Mary, two grandsons and three great-grandchildren.

During the early 1930s and 1940s, Wilson ran a gift shop in Berkeley, near the University of California campus. She also served as an air raid warden during World War II.

But she is nonchalant about having cracked the century mark.

“I didn’t plan it,” she said.

Hamilton, who will turn 101 in February, was also ambivalent about his age.

“I don’t know the difference between 100 and another year,” Hamilton said. “It came on gradually. I just lived as I went along.”

The veteran of World War I and World War II is an avid reader, frequently clipping out magazine articles that catch his attention. He has two children, six grandchildren and at least six great-grandchildren.

“It’s hard to keep track, you know,” Hamilton said.

His advice about living longer, he said is to do everything in moderation.

“I was a heavy smoker but I quit smoking about 70 years ago,” Hamilton said. “I swam regularly and I was in the military. There’s this saying, ‘nothing to excess.’ That’s what it is.”