Watch CBS News

Secret To Long Life? Don't Drink, Smoke Or Get Angry

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A Chicago woman has reached a milestone, turning 100 years old.

Lola Bea Marsh--"Aunt Bee"--to family, says one secret to her longevity is that she never gets angry and never has.

Her family surprised her with a party today in the high rise apartment building where she still lives alone.

"Sometimes when I wake up in the morning I say, now I'm a hundred years old but it just don't seem like I should be a hundred, then I go to counting," she laughs.

When she came to Chicago from Mississippi as a little girl, she says, she recalls the street cars and the Great Depression.

She says her mind is still young. Her body, though she says, won't always do the things she liked to do in recent years, like walk on the lakefront or go to the Art Institute.

She said she doesn't drink and doesn't smoke.

She's careful about what she puts in her body. No meat. She doesn't like people who use foul language. And, she says, she can't ever recall lashing out at someone in anger. And she says, she believes in God.

She married at 17 and had 2 children. Her husband died in the 1962.

And she worked, most of her career in healthcare, at the University of Illinois.

Her father gave her some advice: If you always smile the world will smile with you.

She says she always remembers that.

Aunt Bea starts each morning listening to the news on WBBM radio.

She spends a lot of time reading, she says, and watching TV, but only shows in which she can learn something.

Podcast

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.