Officials Honor Elderly Residents for Their Longevity

As they walked arm-in-arm through the Glendale Civic Auditorium last week, Virginia Young looked lovingly at her 95-year-old father and explained the secret of his longevity.

“His caring is still for other people,” said Young, 60. “I’m pretty proud of him for that.”

But her father, the Rev. Clarance Henry Parlour, offered a different theory.

“The secret of long living is don’t die,” Parlour said. “Simple as that.”

Parlour and nearly 100 other Glendale residents who apparently have mastered that secret were honored by city officials Thursday as “seniors of the century.” All were born before 1910 and have lived in every decade of the 1900s. Thirteen--including Parlour--were born in the 19th Century.

The reception, the first of its kind, kicked off the second annual, daylong senior citizens fair, sponsored by the Glendale Parks and Recreation Department and the Greater Glendale Council on Aging.

About 1,300 senior citizens attended the fair, collecting information from vendors and many of Glendale’s 46 elderly advocate groups and investigating the latest in services, said Marian Anderson, a senior programs supervisor for the department.

Earlier, the “seniors of the century,” many accompanied by their families, gathered on the auditorium’s patio, ate pastries and received certificates and accolades from city officials.

“There are many out there who just sit around and wait for time to pass--but not you,” Glendale Mayor Larry Zarian told those who were honored Thursday.

Marcus Stuart Howard, a Glendale resident for 36 years, agreed. Howard, who will turn 84 next week, won a gold medal in the shot put and a bronze medal in horseshoe throwing at last year’s World Senior Games, an annual Olympics-style event for the elderly that is held in Utah.

“He can hit a baseball farther than I can,” said Paul Warme, Howard’s 18-year-old grandson, who attended the reception.

One of Howard’s four daughters in attendance proudly cited another accomplishment. “He’s got seven kids, and all seven were raised in Glendale,” said Deborah Cameron, 37. “He didn’t have time to grow old.”

For some of the elderly citizens, the reception at the civic auditorium was especially memorable. Don Bourrette, a Glendale resident for 50 years who recently moved to Pasadena, was a painter who helped build the auditorium in 1938. Bourrette, 83, later managed it for nearly three decades.

For others, it was merely another activity in a busy schedule. Parlour, who retired from St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Glendale in 1962, still is active in church affairs and is preparing to give a blessing at a June wedding, his daughter said.

Elaine Brown, a Glendale resident since 1933, took time off from her volunteer work as a hostess at the Glendale Adult Recreation Center, which provides recreation for the elderly, to attend the reception with her husband, Charley.

The Browns, married in 1972, were too young to be honored--Elaine is 74, Charley is 72--but they clapped and cheered when their friends received accolades.

“When I was young, they used to put the old folks in a room and bring them out only when they had company,” Elaine Brown said. “Now look at all there is to do.”