A century ago, when Teddy Roosevelt was president and aspirin was new on the market, the average U.S. life span was 47 years.
Dr. J. Gordon Spendlove and his wife, Elizabeth, have both lived more than twice that long. But they also have defied some other long odds by remaining married for almost 75 of those years.
On Sunday, the Spendloves will celebrate their 100th birthdays — he was born Oct. 10, 1908, and she on Sept. 22, 1908 — and their 75th wedding anniversary. They tied the knot Sept. 22, 1933.
“No, no, I never thought we’d live to be 100,” J. Gordon Spendlove said Wednesday, confiding, “It’s not all that bad.”
Asked for the secret to long life, Spendlove laughed and said, “The secret is HA!”
In other words, said the couple’s daughter, Linda Darling of Golden, her parents have been active, upbeat, laughing and loving.
They moved from town to town during Spendlove’s 31-year career as a physician and Veterans Affairs hospital administrator. He was director of the Iowa City, Iowa, VA hospital in the 1960s and retired from the Fort Wayne, Ind., facility in 1976.
Elizabeth Spendlove suffers from health problems that prevented her from being interviewed, but she plans to celebrate Sunday at the Lakewood Meridian center with their daughter and son, Gordon R. Spendlove of Lakewood, two grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Looking at the photographs gathered for the event, J. Gordon Spendlove said, “I see happy days, smiling people, joyful scenes — so many wonderful memories that bring back the years and years.”
Spendlove recalled the first time he saw his wife. “I was with someone else on a college trip when I looked at her and thought, ‘I’m in the wrong place.’ The next year, I was with her.”
What attracted him, Spendlove said, “was her simply wonderful beauty that is just infectious.”
If he has advice on what makes a good marriage, Spendlove said, “It’s being married to the right woman.”
An estimated 50,000 Americans are 100 or older, and centenarians “are the fastest-growing segment of the population,” said Dr. Wendy Gozansky, an assistant geriatrics professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
“What’s most unusual is they’re a couple,” Gozansky said. “Men are so much less likely to become centenarians. About 80 percent are women.”
Ann Schrader: 303-278-3217 or aschrader@denverpost.com
