At 100, This Pensioner Still Remembers--and Enjoys--the Good Life : Profile: Peter Bentovoja vividly recalls the birth of the longshoremen’s union in 1933. And he’s still reaping the benefits.

Peter Bentovoja received the biggest pay raise of his life--$200 a month--three days before his 100th birthday.

The San Pedro centenarian’s “pay raise” was actually an increase in his longshoremen’s union pension that took effect New Year’s Day. The increase alone, he says, is more than what he was earning when he retired 35 years ago.

“First thing you should buy a new chair for yourself. Your chair looks terrible,” Maria, Bentovoja’s wife of 67 years, suggested as the two sat in the living room of their home.

“And while you’re at it,” added Maria Bentovoja, 91, “you should buy me a new rocker.”

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It was quite a week for Bentovoja, who was the recipient of the raise and the guest of honor at a birthday party Wednesday from the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union. He is the oldest of the union’s 10,000 pensioners.

More than 200 retirees attended Bentovoja’s party at the Wilmington headquarters of Local 13.

Bentovoja was a charter member of the union in 1933 when it was organized by Harry Bridges, a friend, and one of Bentovoja’s two heroes.

“The two men I admire the most in my life were Harry Bridges and President Franklin D. Roosevelt,” Bentovoja told party-goers.

“Thanks to Bridges, members of the ILWU are among the highest paid workers in America today. When FDR came into office, he told workers to organize for a better life. That’s what we longshoremen on the waterfront did. Led by Harry Bridges, we formed a union and never regretted it. It gave us security, a good life.

“It is still giving me a good income. My union pension is now $970 a month. It was $80 a month when I retired 35 years ago.”

Lou Loveridge, president of the local’s retiree organization, said Bentovoja was “one of the staunchest believers whenever Harry Bridges called a strike for higher wages, better benefits.”

For the longshoremen, who handle cargo on the waterfront, the path to financial well-being was often dangerous.

“It was tough in the early days,” Bentovoja recalled. “We fought hard to make headway. The strikes were mean. Six longshoremen were killed up and down the Pacific Coast--two in San Pedro during the first ILWU strike (in 1934). We were out three months. But it paid off in the long run.”

Before the union was formed, Bentovoja said, he was fortunate to earn $25 a week. “Now the guys are making almost that much an hour,” he said.

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Today, most of the goods are packed in containers and moved around with the help of machinery. In Bentovoja’s time, longshoremen hauled the goods.

But such labor came easily to him.

Born on the Croatian island of Korcula on the Dalmatian Coast, Bentovoja was a shoemaker from the time he was 12 (“I made shoes from scratch, selling them house-to-house”) until he left for the United States seven years later.

When he arrived in America in 1913, he worked as a laborer for the Southern Pacific Railroad in Sacramento for four years and went on to become a streetcar motorman in San Francisco for four years until moving to San Pedro in 1921.

He was a commercial fisherman on Mexican and Canadian boats before finally becoming a longshoreman in 1926, the year he married Maria, who was also born on Korcula.

The Bentovojas have lived in the same house since it was constructed in 1940.

“I paid $500 for the lot and $4,000 for the house--a lot of money then,” he said.

They raised two sons: Pete, a retired Los Angeles Times artist, and Bob, who was an artist for the Los Angeles Examiner.

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All in all, Bentovoja is at a loss to explain how he has lived so long.

“That’s what I would like to know,” he replied when asked for his secret. “I’ve never really been sick. My mind is clear. I can remember everything from when I was a small boy all through my life. I don’t need a cane to walk or anything like that. I have all my teeth. I don’t wear glasses except to read. I’ve been very lucky.”

“Until three years ago, I walked a couple miles every day to downtown San Pedro to stand on a corner and visit with my old cronies,” he explained, “but they’re all dead now, and those old cronies were guys younger than me. For years I played pinochle every day but that ended a long time ago when all the other card players died.

“If I go visit my friends now, I have to go to the cemetery.”

Now he spends his days cooking alongside his wife and gardening.

And he keeps a positive outlook.

“I live for today, for a little wine and a good dinner every night,” he mused. “For me, everyday is a wonderful day. And, why not? I’m still here.”