BY DANI TIETZ
dani@sjodaily.com
Homer, Ill. –
Turning 100 years old is something few expect to do. Even of those who think they might, actually getting to 100 is out of their hands.
As Edith and Warren Gordon of Homer prepare for a 100th birthday celebration on Sept. 1, 2019, they are also looking forward to their actual birthdays, Sept. 7 and Sept. 14.
“We’ve never been 100 before,” Edith said. “We don’t know what to expect.”
Warren has big plans for the days between Sept. 7th and the 14th.
“Since I’m a week older, for a week, I’m the boss,” he said.
Edith replied, “he thinks he is.”
Edith met Warren on a blind date after her sister encouraged her to go to the St. Joseph Fall Festival when she was 19. Her sister wanted to meet up with a boy. The boy brought along Warren.
“She wouldn’t go without me,” she said.
“I wasn’t going with anyone,” Warren said.
While Edith may have been a blind date, the couple continued to go out on double dates. They spent time together during WWII when Warren was working at a defense base in Indianapolis. He traveled to Edith’s hometown in Homer to see her, then worked on making the Norden Mk bomb for three-and-a-half years.
Toward the end of the war, in 1945 when they were 25 years old, Edith and Warren walked down the aisle together at the Homer Methodist Church in a small, simple service surrounded only by family.
The couple celebrated their 74th wedding anniversary in June.
The Gordons raised four children together: Raymie, Marsha, Sharon and Dan. Today they have six grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren.
Family members from all over, including nieces and nephews from Texas, Tennessee, Maryland and South Carolina will be at the Labor Day celebration.
When the Gordons turned 90, they celebrated alongside family, and even a few of Edith’s classmates that hit the milestone.
“We had a celebration then, but this is going to be a bigger celebration because so many folks are coming,” Warren said.
Of the 18 students Edith graduated with, three made it to 90. Another graduate of Homer High School who was a year ahead of Edith turned 90 that year. Warren, who graduated from Urbana High School in a class with more than 150 students, also celebrated.
“I thought 90 was old. But I don’t feel 90,” Edith said.
“100 my gosh, don’t say that! That really makes me old.”
Edith believes it might be the good genes she and Warren were blessed with. She had four aunts who made it to 90, and Warren had two sisters who lived that long, too.
But, she also believes the fact that they have never drank or smoked might have played a part.
Dan, Ray and Sharon all live in Homer now, Sharon living right across the street, to take care of their parents, makes sure they get to their doctors’ appointments and to make sure Edith doesn’t have to go up the stairs on her own.
“When we bought this (1951), I could run right up those steps, and then come back down and go to the basement and not think anything about it. But now they won’t even let me go upstairs; they follow me up, then they go down ahead of me. They are afraid I’ll fall.”
She admits that she can walk around her home fine right now, but being on the grass is difficult. Warren needs a little more help.
While their bodies may be more fragile than in their younger years, they have no problem remembering the good times they spent with their children and grandchildren.
Warren would light the grill every weekend to make grilled chicken or hamburgers wrapped in foil while Edith provided the macaroni and cheese, potato salad and her famous baked beans.
It wasn’t unusual for them to churn ice cream, either. Vanilla ice cream is still Warren’s favorite treat.
Edith stayed at home to raise the kids while Warren worked as a machinist at CS Johnson before moving on to become an instrument maker at the University of Illinois.
“I wanted to raise the kids,” Edith said. “I didn’t want to put them in a home with somebody else raising them.”
Many of her days were spent doing housework, but her children remember the countless hours she spent in the garden, even until she was in her mid-90s.
“She’d spend hours out there,” Dan said. “If she wasn’t in the house, she’d be out there literally for hours mowing and picking weeds.”
“I worked hard,” Edith added. “I love the garden. It’s work. And I did a lot of canning of everything we made.”
In her 100 years, all Edith has ever known is Homer.
“This has been home to me forever,” she said.
Growing up on a farm and now living in town, she said she’s enjoyed how quiet the community is.
“It’s just been good living in Homer,” she said. “I feel like this is farm country.”
It was important to the couple to make sure that their children grew up knowing God.
“The kids didn’t say, ‘Are we going to church this morning?’ ” Edith said.
“Everybody knew they were going. We went there, had dinners at the church, our friends were from the church.”
Their son Ray now ministers at Homer’s United Congregational Church.
As their children got older, they enjoyed spending time in the backyard together, watching the satellites pass by near the campfire.
“We joke about looking for aliens,” Angela said. “That’s something that all of us have fond memories of.”
Dan said the family would stay out together until 10:30 or so, then head away so they could get up for work in the morning.
“One of our nephews still wants to come over and have a campfire,” Sharon said. “Mom and dad now can’t get out like they used to, but Josh is always, ‘can we have a campfire?’ ”
Like many families, the Gordons took their children on a summer vacation, traveling to Deer Lake in Minnesota.
As their children moved out and started their adult lives, Edith and Warren made a point to include their grandchildren in the outdoor activities they enjoyed. They got a camper, taking it to Weldon Springs for a week or to Springfield during the State Fair.
“The kids have fond memories of doing that,” Sharon said.
But they probably had the most fun after Warren retired. They drove to California, Niagra Falls, Florida, Wyoming and Nebraska, among other trips.
When they went to Champaign to grocery shop each week, they invited friends. After shopping, they would “double date” at a local buffet.
“After he retired, that was a lot of our exercise,” Edith said.
Dan said his mom could eat more fried chicken than he could, even in his younger days.
“It was nice to eat chicken that you didn’t fry,” she said.
Part of their annual trip to Deer Lake was to eat a fried chicken dinner in the car.
“We’d hardly be out of Illinois when the kids were ready to eat,” Edith said. “They loved to eat on the way up.”
The time the Gordons spent together has created something special.
“As a family, we’ve been pretty close,” Warren said. “We always enjoyed that.”
Warren, a former horseshoe player, said that he is excited about turning 100.
At age 16, he wasn’t sure he would make it this far.
Full of a teenage spirit, Warren and seven of his friends went on a ride in a Ford Coupe built in the 1930s: three people inside the car, and two on each side of the car, riding on the crossbar.
When the boys did not see a car coming perpendicular to their vehicle, the car was stuck, and Warren rolled across the road where IL-150 and Main Street in St. Joseph now meet.
Warren was unconscious for eight days.
“I was lying there in the bed and not coming to,” he said. “I’m thankful I don’t remember much about those eight days either. I’m thankful to be alive.”
Warren said that he feels he and Edith have led a good Christian life.
But most of all, he said they are proud of their family.
“The good Lord has been with us most of the time,” he said.
“We have quite a family group,” he said. “We are proud of all of them.”
Edith agrees.
“We’ve enjoyed it. We have up and downs, there’s no doubt about it,” she said. “You don’t live with somebody and always see the same thing the same way.”
But Edith said there was one thing they did see the same way.
“I knew, he would never, ever hit me,” she said. “And that’s worth a lot.”
In his quick wit and a smile on his face, Warren replied, “You don’t have to pay for what you didn’t do.”
For the Gordons, what they did in the time they spent together means more than just dates.
“It doesn’t seem like I’ve been alive 100 years,” Warren says. “But time just marches on.
“Eternity is a long time.”
All are invited to a birthday celebration on Sunday, September 1st from 2-4pm at Homer Community building.
