Title doesn't mean much to Breuning

 

By KARL PUCKETT • Tribune Staff Writer • July 20, 2009

Walter Breuning of Great Falls, who is 112, downplayed being the oldest man in the world Sunday after 113-year-old Henry Allingham of England died Saturday, but others paused to acknowledge the milestone.

So you're the king on the hill," 95-year-old John Kenny kidded Breuning as they passed each other in the lobby of the Rainbow Retirement Home, where Breuning lives.

As Breuning sat in the sun room, other residents stopped to offer congratulations.

"It's not half as important as feeling good," Breuning said.

Breuning said he's most grateful for his good health, not a world title, noting that he still is hungry for breakfast when he gets up each morning.

"If you're in good health, you've got everything there is," he said.

Following Allingham's death, both the Guinness World Records and Gerontology Research Group Web sites listed Breuning as the world's oldest man, pending verification.

Longevity doesn't run in Breuning's family.

Breuning said his father, a civil engineer, died at 50, and his mother, a housewife, at 46. Two brothers and two sisters died in their 70s, he said.

Breuning credits his longevity to keeping busy and moderation.

He worked until he was 66, retiring in 1963 after a long career with Great Northern Railway, where

he began work at 16 in Minnesota before transferring to Great Falls five years later.

But he continued to serve as the manager-secretary of the local Shriner's Club until he was 99.

For the past 30 years, Breuning has eaten two meals a day, including good-sized helpings of fruit. The country's growing problem with obesity is easy to explain, he says. "They eat too much."

He takes no pills and still walks up the ramps to get to his second-floor apartment each day after breakfast.

When he was younger, Breuning said he enjoyed an occasional beer or "high ball," but he didn't drink in excess. He gave up his beloved cigars, which he had smoked all of his life, when he was 99.

Breuning was born in Melrose, Minn., on Sept. 21, 1896, the year William McKinley won the presidency. Breuning cast his first presidential ballot for Woodrow Wilson, who served from 1913 to 1921, and he's voted in every presidential election since.

As a young boy, the family moved to Minneapolis and later to De Smet S.D.

A lot has changed over the past century, he says. "I bet you never saw a horse pull a fire engine."

 

 

 

Walter Breuning, who is 112, has lived at the Rainbow Retirement facility in downtown Great Falls for 29 years. "It's not half as important as feeling good," he said of the possibility of being the world's oldest man. (TRIBUNE PHOTO/KARL PUCKETT)

 

LINK TO VIDEO OF WALTER BREUNING:

 

http://gannett.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/gannett-greatfalls-094-pub01-live/current/launch.html?maven_playerId=immersiveplayer&maven_referralObject=960188957