LOS ANGELES: The world’s oldest man, Walter Breuning, whose first memories included the day US president William McKinley was shot in 1901, has died at age 114, the retirement home where he lived said Friday.
“He did die yesterday afternoon” of natural causes at a hospital in Great Falls, in the US state of Montana, said Stacia Kirby, a spokeswoman for the Rainbow Senior Living facility.
Breuning was the second oldest person in the world, 26 days younger than American woman Besse Cooper, according to the Gerontology Research Group which tracks the world’s oldest centenarians.
Breuning was a retired railworker who attributed his longevity to eating only two meals a day for the past 35 years.
“I think you should push back from the table when you’re still hungry,” he told the Great Falls Tribune newspaper in 2009.
“You get in the habit of not eating at night, and you realize how good you feel. If you could just tell people not to eat so darn much,” he said.
Each year on his birthday, Breuning offered words of wisdom in a speech at his retirement home, where he had lived since 1980. “A useless life is short if it lasts a century. There are greater and better things in us all, if we would find them out,” Breuning said recently. Governor Brian Schweitzer was “deeply saddened” by Breuning’s death, he said in a statement.
“Walter taught me that all things in moderation will help lead to a long life; that hard work and a modest living are enough for a happy life and most importantly that giving back to others is good for the soul.”
Breuning was born in Melrose, Minnesota, on September 21, 1896, and moved to Great Falls in 1918, finding work with the Great Northern Railway.
He signed up for military service during World War I, but never served. By the time World War II broke out, he was too old for duty.
According to the retirement home, Breuning would often refer to his childhood, recalling the day McKinley was shot as the day “I got my first haircut.”
