The "Lancaster...A Living Wonder!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  A Sunday... and one of the very first things I do on Sunday morning, or any other morning, is open the front door of my villa and grab my newspaper from the doorstep.  I might have mentioned that since moving to Woodcrest Villa a bit over a year ago, I totally enjoy opening my front door each and every morning to find my morning newspaper standing against the door frame.  I grab the paper, close the door and off I go to my easy chair to read the local, national and international news as well as comics, etc., etc. with my sweetheart, "The Gray Lady", sitting on my lap, purring away!  Every so often, I open the door and find I have to walk to the front driveway to pick up my paper.  Yeah...I know...my delivery guy must be on vacation!  If only you could be as lucky as I am to not have to walk to the curb every morning in your PJs.  One of the sections of the Sunday paper that I check out first is the "Local Section" which carries local news as well as the "Through The Viewfinder" section which is a special weekly photograph taken by one of the local newspaper photographers.  I knew quite a few of them since they used to make visits to my photograph class to talk about their job as a photojournalist when I was still teaching high school.  Another part of the Local Section is the "Obituaries" which at times can be rather lengthy in size.  Lancaster is not a hugh city, but it always amazes me as to the number of obituaries that are in the newspaper on a daily basis.  And, on a Sunday it isn't unusual to find 25-30 more obituaries that had not been in the weekly newspaper.  Today had a listing of deaths from the previous week which totaled 113.  And...that's not that unusual to have that many each week.  Not only do they list the names of all whom have died, but the section of Lancaster where that had lived, the date they died, their maiden name if a female and their age when they had died.  Over the years I have found that the medium age of those who had died that particular week has increased.  More and more people are living longer than they did 15, 20, 25, etc.  years ago.  I scanned the ages when I was typing this story and found quite a few of the 113 were in their 70s, 80s and even 90s when they died.  And, believe it or not, this past week a woman that had just died was 107 years old.  It happened to be in the Sunday section that I was reading for information for this story, so I re-read the story once again.  The woman that had died was a resident of Garden Spot Village.  She was born in Media, Pennsylvania.  Listed her deceased husband's name as well as the fact that she had worked in a silk mill at one time.  She enjoyed knitting, crocheting, sewing and painting with watercolors.  She had grown up on a family farm that dated back to the Revolutionary War!  But, to top that off...at the age of 83, she was diagnosed with cancer and was graciously seen by a world-renowned surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital.  After a very successful procedure, she was able to enjoy another 24 years of her life.  She was survived by a son, daughter in-law, 2 grandsons, 6 great grand-children, 9 great, great grandchildren and 1 step great, great granddaughter.  Another paragraph listed those that she had outlived with information about the funeral that would follow.  The photograph that accompanied the obituary showed a beautiful woman with a pink top and pearls around her neck.  She must have lived one heck of a fantastic life!  Her obituary was the largest one on the page in order to tell the story of her life.  There were six other obituaries on that page with ages listed as 95, 94, 94, 82, 80 and 75.  There is just something about Lancaster County, Pennsylvania that makes people want to live a long, healthy, carefree life!  Both my parents were in their mid to late 80s when they died.  So...I got a bunch more living to do so I can write stories for you to read.  I might even outlive you!  I'll let you know!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.