Hard work, eating healthy, getting plenty of exercise and nourishing friendships are her keys to a long life

 

By Marty Cheek

The day of her birth, Teri Swan’s father drove his horse-drawn buggy to pick up the doctor and take him back to the family’s farmhouse near the village of Brackney in southern Pennsylvania. The newborn weighed a hefty 12 pounds.

A month before her birth on May 7, 1917, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in support of President Woodrow Wilson’s declaration of war against Germany. The Morgan Hill resident recently celebrated her 105th birthday at a time when another European war is raging following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Born Teri Maxian, as an infant she was separated from her parents and siblings to live with her grandmother. Financial necessity required that to make extra money for the family her mother worked long hours at a cigar factory. During the seven years she lived with her grandmother, the child learned a good work ethic from watching the woman labor hard on the farm.

Swan’s childhood memories are still sharp a century later. She recalls watching her family’s barn burn when she was seven years old. Someone walking by had tossed a lit cigarette and a brand-new car stored in the structure was destroyed in the flames.

As she grew up, she spent hard hours working on the Maxian family farm when she was not attending to her education in a one-room schoolhouse a three-mile walk away. She went through its eight grades, with the teacher often sharing with the students stories of other countries, opening her mind to what wonders the world offered.

“You spend most of the day studying, doing your homework that you probably would have been doing at home at night, but you don’t have to because you do it during the day,” she said. “The teacher would call one class up and they would go through their lessons. And if you’re smart, you’re listening, because you know it’s going to be your turn one of these days.”

As a child, Swan woke up at 4 a.m. to milk the cows and do other chores before school. After school, she continued her farm work until after dark. The physical labor hardened her body to be heavy and dense with muscle, Swan said during an interview in her Woodlands Estates mobile home. “When I was 12 years old, I weighed 150 pounds. I was a strong, tough kid,” she said.

She took her first private airplane ride at the age of 14. “It was a piece of junk,” she recalls of her sky-bound adventure. “The guy was giving rides, I think it was fifty cents or something like that. I was really brave because I am afraid of heights and I went into that damn plane. I was a farm kid.”

Young Teri continued her life of farm labor, dreaming of one day going to college. The ambitious girl never made it to a university because the family didn’t have enough money for tuition. When she moved 7.5 miles away to Binghamton, N.Y. at age 16, she started taking night school to study drafting.

“I don’t know why I picked that subject,” she said. “Oh, I liked to draw. Anyhow, it came in handy.”

During the day she did housework to pay for rent and other essentials. Her drafting skills soon landed her into IBM’s engineering department. Her starting pay was 70 cents an hour.

While working at IBM, a friend of Teri’s took her to the movies for her 20th birthday celebration.  While driving down the street, a convertible with two guys inside pulled to the side of her friend’s car. The passenger’s name was Harold Swan, an IBM employee. After they started dating, he would soon propose to her. They got married and had two boys and two girls and were married for 55 years.

“I probably would never have married because I didn’t have a boyfriend,” Swan said, recalling how she met her husband. “I would have been an old maid.”

After World War II, IBM transferred Harold to its site in San Jose. Bringing up children in the new California life was an adventure. She had taken up golf in New York state and enjoyed playing for many years in the Golden State. She sometimes served as a scorekeeper for celebrities playing in tournaments such as the Bing Crosby National Pro-Amateur in Pebble Beach (now known as the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am). Among the famous folks who she kept score for were Willie Mays, Bob Hope and Nathanial Crosby (Bing’s son).

“It was just a game to me. I tried to do the best I can,” she said. “They asked us to stay away from the cameras and the players and I did the best I could. My dad would have the TV on every Sunday to see if he can see her, but he never did.”

Swan moved to Morgan Hill about 10 years ago and enjoys its relaxing lifestyle. She drove a car until the age of 103 when she had an accident and her vision was starting to go bad.

“I had my license. I had one accident. I could not figure out what caused it,” she said. “And then I realized I did the same thing that all old people do when they’re driving. They slam on the gas instead of the brake. That’s what I did and I just creamed this car.” No one was hurt, luckily.

Swan lives alone and does her own cooking and housework. She spends her time as a talented crochet and knitting artist, creating original color schemes and designs of her own. She also makes and donates charming, hand-made bonnets for newborn babies in hospitals, along with blankets for local pets to keep them warm.

Over the past century, Swan witnessed considerable changes in American culture and technology. From a horse-and-buggy world on farm roads to one where electric cars zoom on highways, she has seen great leaps in technology. Still modern technology doesn’t mean that much to her. She doesn’t own a computer.

“Heavens, no!” she exclaimed after being asked if she uses one. “When I want to know anything, I just call my son. He just flips this thing and tells me. It’s cheaper that way.”

If a person asked for words of wisdom that she learned from her many years, she said she would tell them: “Stay out of trouble. That’s what I did. It never occurred to me to do something wrong. I was raised that you don’t be naughty.”

She also recommends a good work ethic and to appreciate the advantages we have today. She also has hope for more women taking leadership roles in the coming years.

“I’m expecting the women are going to take over this country, as my son says, after the white-faced guys go away,” she said with a grin.

Asked her tips on achieving such an extraordinary longevity, the centenarian recommends: “Doing plenty of hard work, eating healthy such as nutritious home-grown fruits and veggies, getting plenty of exercise and nourishing friendships.” Also asked by her neighbor and friend Bernice Lawrence if she was “ready to die”  Swan’s adamant reply was “No!  I’m having too much fun!”