Man at 110 says breakfast, crying helped him

Man at 110 says breakfast, crying helped him
REUTERS

Carnegie (Oklahoma), May 31: Benjamin Harrison Holcomb, age 110, always ate a big breakfast, cried often, rarely drank and never smoked. Now he has lived in three centuries.

The world's oldest man -- a title the Guinness Book of World Records bestowed on him last week -- Holcomb farmed wheat, dabbled in cotton and raised cattle and children for most of his life. His family say he had few vices but he did divorce twice before his third marriage stuck.

From his birth in 1889, his life has mainly ebbed and flowed with Oklahoma's land, weather and waving wheat.

So what is life like for a man entering a third century?'' Feels like it did yesterday,'' Holcomb, whose descendants number into five generations, told daughter Leona Ford, 84.

Exhausted by phone calls from around the world after he made it into the Guinness Book, he slept through most of the following few days. But his children spoke for him at his side in the Carnegie nursing home, where he gets daily visits from Ford, his other daughter, Lucille, 85, and son John, 80.

``He says they (the callers) are probably mixed up,'' Ford said. ``He's never known he was old. He's just one of these people who lived one day at a time.''

``Life's been fairly good for my daddy,'' Ford said. ``Course, it was hard.''

Holcomb was born on July 3, 1889, in Robinson, Kansas, the 7th and youngest child of Chestnut Wade Holcomb, 45, and Sarah Jane Holcomb, 41. His father fought in the civil war as an officer on the victorious Union side.

The year Holcomb was born was also the year of the Oklahoma land run, when huge sections of the future state were opened for white settlers. He was an infant when his family came in a covered wagon and started a farm near the town of Seiling.

They made part of their home a school and Holcomb started classes at age four. Part of his longevity may have begun then, Ford said. She said his mother breast-fed him until the age of 5, a practice not uncommon in pioneering days.

``I think that might be part of it. He would come home from school and she had a special little rocking chair. She would sit in it and he would stand next to her to nurse.''

Learning to read at an early age led to a lifelong pursuit. By the time he entered the nursing home, Holcomb subscribed to and regularly read about a dozen magazines and newspapers.