Centenarians gather and share their secrets

You could say Jim Thornton robbed the cradle when he married a woman 18 years his junior three years ago. Except that woman, Martence, is now 82 years old.

The couple attended their first annual Governor's Centenarian Celebration on Monday — which happened to be Jim Thornton's 100th birthday as well.

He was the youngest of about 45 centenarians — people 100 years or older— who attended the event in the Bonneville Building at the Utah State Fairpark.

While they ate brunch, Utah Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert presented each of the centenarians with a certificate of congratulations on a long life,

Utah's oldest resident, 109-year-old Rhea Barnett, attended as well as the state's oldest male, 106-year-old Russell B. Clark. Born in 1898, Barnett is the only living Utahn to have lived in three centuries.

Many of the centenarians on hand revealed their secrets to their longevity.

"My policy is to live a clean life," said A.B. Blake, who is 105. "I try to keep that policy going, and it makes me feel better."

Blake was born in 1901 in Oklahoma, which was not yet a state at the time. He then moved to Arizona, which was also not yet a state.

Allan Jackson's clue to a long life was simple: "Love myself so I can love everybody else," the 103-year-old said. "Respect your neighbors, your friends and your surroundings."

Jackson was born in 1903 in Nassau, Bahamas. He was stationed in Utah while in the U.S. Army in 1937 and decided to return to the state permanently in 1949. He said he's been married seven times and has 40 children.

There are about 40,000 centenarians in the United States, about one of every 10,000 people, said Jeanette Herbert, wife of the lieutenant governor. In 2000, there were 155 centenarians in Utah, about 85 percent were women.

The number of centenarians in Utah is increasing, and more of Utah's oldest residents showed up at the brunch than expected, said state Human Services spokesman Carol Sisco.

"As we do more and more of these events, fewer of them come in on wheelchairs and more come in on their own feet," Sisco said.

Thornton and his fellow 100-year-olds were born the same year as Hershey chocolate bars and metered taxi cabs. They have each lived through two world wars, the Great Depression, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, and 19 different U.S. presidents.

This year, the Utah Division of Aging and Adult Services, which put on the event, also provided a yearbook to each of the centenarians and their families. Seventy-five of the state's centenarians submitted photos, recollections and histories for the yearbook.

Thornton credits his long life partly to eating a clove of garlic and a spoonful of olive oil every morning since he was 8 years old. Getting engaged and married as a 97-year-old has also kept him young, he said.

"I've just had a good life," Thornton said.

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