Centenarian Sets Lively Pace on His Birthday

Milton Ketchum celebrated his 100th birthday in style Monday.

There was breakfast with Milton at 7:30 a.m., walking with Milton at 8:45, Milton’s special luncheon at 11:30, straight on through to the birthday party for Milton at 7:30.

A resident at the Hillcrest Inn in Thousand Oaks, Ketchum says he doesn’t know what all the fuss is about.

“For the last few days I’ve been hearing about a lot of old people who are 100 years old, and about phone companies, and automobile companies--they’re trying to steal my stuff, my claim to fame,” Ketchum said, sounding slightly peeved.

Ketchum was born the year the modern Olympic games began and the first movie premiered in New York City. Grover Cleveland was president, and there were 45 states in the union.

Robust and clearheaded, Ketchum can remember events as far back as the Spanish-American War, although he acknowledges he was only 2 when it happened.

“I saw the tents,” Ketchum said. “The troops set up a camp on the back field where my mother had grown up, while they were getting ready to go to Manila.”

Ketchum surprised a few of his fellow residents at the retirement home on Hodencamp Road with his new status as a centenarian.

“Wow!” one elderly resident said loudly at a birthday celebration in Ketchum’s honor, when she learned that the former benefits officer for New York Telephone rivals the Olympics in longevity.

Ketchum was born in Upstate New York near Troy, in a small farming village known as Wynantskill, and was the youngest of three sons. His father was a shopkeeper, postmaster, town clerk, school trustee, and an organist and elder in the village’s Dutch Reform church.

After finishing college in 1916, Ketchum worked briefly for his brother at a Buick agency before taking on a job at New York Telephone and moving to New York City. It was there that he met his wife, Cecelia, and lifelong mentor Norman Vincent Peale, a proponent of positive thinking. He often traveled with Peale to Europe and the Middle East.

Ketchum was married in 1930. It was his wife who persuaded him to move from New York to California 10 years ago.

“We kept getting letters about the good weather and climate,” Ketchum said.

His wife of 64 years, and the mother of two sons, James and Robert, died in 1994.

Ketchum said he wasn’t sure what has kept him going for a century.

“If I’d known that I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself,” he said.

He does, however, give a little credit to his faith and the ability to laugh at life’s misfortunes.

“The Bible says a merry heart does a good life credit,” Ketchum said. “Keep young at heart, and take a positive view of everything, even when things come along that look bad.”