Jacob Benjamin Stouffer: Adventure was an elixir for centenarian

Closer to home, the feisty centenarian was simply the oldest resident in Pima County.

Even in the hospital earlier this month, he demanded to do things his way.

"He said, 'Lyle, get me my arm. Get me my shoes. Get me my wheelchair. I want to get out of this place,' " said one of his sons, Lyle Stouffer.

Jacob Stouffer never made it out of the hospital. He died of pneumonia March 5. But during his 108 years, he gave life one heck of a run.

Stouffer was honored last spring by the Pima Council on Aging as the county's oldest known resident. He was one of 29 centenarians — people 100 or older — honored. The council identified another 59 Pima County centenarians who were unable to attend the event.

"He was a true model of healthy aging," said L'Don Sawyer, manager of senior services at Tucson Medical Center and a member of the centenarian committee. "Here he was, at his age, still getting out daily for a walk and balancing his checkbook. He was so sharp and just a delightful man. Someone that you look at and you say, 'This man has lived right.' "

Demographer David K. Taylor estimates there are 119 centenarians in Pima County, compared with 99 in 2000. A 2004 U.S. Census Bureau report showed more than 700 people 100 or older living in Arizona.

People in the United States are living longer and healthier lives, according to a 2005 Census Bureau report. The average life expectancy at birth rose from 47.3 in 1900, the year Stouffer was born, to 76.9 in 2000.

The number of centenarians increased, too, from about 37,000 in 1990 to more than 84,000 today. By 2040, the figure is expected to rise to 580,000. About 80 percent of centenarians are women.

"We are seeing a lot more people who are centenarians and going up to the super-centenarians (age 110 and older) who are still mentally sharp and who have aged very gracefully," Sawyer said.

Longevity studies suggest centenarians have several characteristics in common:

• Few are obese.

• They are rarely smokers.

• They handle stress well.

• Longevity runs in their families.

Stouffer, whose parents lived into their late 90s, possessed all of these characteristics.

"He used to tell me, 'I didn't drink. I didn't smoke. I worked hard all my life and I didn't get fat,'" Stouffer's son said.

Maria Hernandez, the director of housekeeping at The Court at Tucson, the assisted-living community Stouffer had called home for seven years, said he exercised daily, until recently.

"He used to walk up and down his hallway and he'd hold onto one of the railings and stretch his legs. He had a little routine going there," she said.

Stouffer was inspiring, said Lezlee Magness, a community relations director at The Court.

"Most younger people, they forget our seniors have lived long and productive lives, and he was really the type of man, when you talked to him and you met him, it made you well aware of the great things our seniors have accomplished," she said.

Stouffer was raised by Mennonite parents on farms in Nebraska, Kansas and Illinois. He eloped with the love of his life, Carol Day, in 1926, and a year later he took over his parents' farm.

The Stouffers, married 72 years, had five children, and by Jacob's 108th birthday last December the family line had expanded to 20 grandchildren, 45 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.

Jacob Stouffer worked hard to provide for his family, but he played hard, too. As a young man, he bought a broken-down World War I surplus military-issue Harley for $10 and taught himself and two brothers to ride. By the time Jacob started a family of his own, he and his much-younger brothers were performing stunts at county fairs.

"When he had the motorcycle, she'd just cringe," Lyle Stouffer said of his mother's reaction to her husband's daredevil ways.

Carol Stouffer had good reason to be nervous.

When Jacob and his brothers performed at fairs, he maneuvered the motorcycle as his younger brother stood on the back of the bike while propping up on his shoulders Jacob and Carol's 3-year-old son, Bob.

Jacob Stouffer eventually gave up stunt riding and focused his interest on flying when Bob earned his pilot's license at 17. Even after Stouffer lost his right hand and part of his forearm in a 1958 farm accident, he continued to fly, making modifications to the throttle so he could operate it with the pincers on the end of his prosthetic arm.

"He was always doing something that was a little over and above what other people were doing," said the Stouffers' only daughter, Eilene Johnson.

The Stouffers moved to Bullhead City in 1997 to be closer to their son Eugene and his family. After Carol died a year later, Stouffer moved into The Court at Tucson, where his son Lyle, visited him every day.

In retirement, Stouffer developed macular degeneration, but that didn't stop him from reading the newspaper and his Bible daily with the help of a device that magnified the print.

He also enjoyed sunning on the patio and socializing with fellow residents at The Court, and for years he was the much-photographed patriarch of family reunions.

Stouffer always took pride in his appearance and wanted to look his best in family photos, so it was with some difficulty that his children convinced him, in recent years, to wear suspenders when belts became cumbersome.

"He couldn't see much, but he could see that camera coming," Lyle Stouffer said. "When he knew pictures were going to be taken, he'd say, 'Get these suspenders off of me. I don't want to look old.' "

the series

This feature chronicles the lives of recently deceased Tucsonans. Some were well-known across the community. Others had an impact on a smaller sphere of friends, family and acquaintances. Many of these people led interesting — and sometimes extraordinary — lives with little or no fanfare. Now you'll hear their stories.

On StarNet

Find a photo gallery of this Life Story at azstarnet.com/slideshows