Russell Buchanan, 106; one of the last U.S. veterans of World War I
Russell A. Buchanan, 106, one of the nation’s last surviving World War I veterans, died Wednesday at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass. He died of complications after a stroke, heart attack and pneumonia, the Boston Globe reported.
Buchanan served in the Navy in the final months of the war and later enlisted in the Army to serve in World War II when he was in his 40s.
His death leaves 13 World War I veterans nationwide, Christopher Scheer of the Veterans Affairs Administration told the Globe.
Born Jan. 24, 1900, in Cambridge, Buchanan was the son of a well-known bagpiper. He chose the trombone as his instrument and played in an Army band.
Between wars, he worked as a pressman and lived for more than 50 years in the same house in Watertown, Mass. His wife, Maybelle, whom he married in 1927, died in 1986. Well past his 100th birthday, he remained physically active by walking at a shopping mall.
When Cambridge presented him with a key to the city last year on his birthday, Buchanan told the Watertown Tab, “People are overdoing my 105th.”
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