Funny how things pop up.
Yesterday, after I did my Buzzyblog post on Hattie Dunbar celebrating her 100 year birthday, I went looking for other posts that I have done on folks who are 100 years young. (I am on a mission to meet as many 100 year olds as I can and am now up to 6 of them. (Would have been 7 if someone named Frances hadn’t intervened, but that’s another story for another day.))
I met Sister Marceline last year in Indiana at the Sisters of Providence Mother House when I attended my cousin Sister Marianne’s Silver Jubilee (click here.)
When I replayed the video that I had included in my previous post on Sister Marceline, I had to smile and just shake my head at the 00:20 mark. It was there that Sister Marceline was asked by the person doing the interview the date of her birthday. She replied “November 23 – I’m down by the turkeys.”
That Sister’s birthday falls on the same day as Hattie’s was a nice coincidence. As I said, it surprised me and made me smile at how things like that happen. It also made me wonder if there was any significance or correlation of life expectancy to the date that one was born on.
I conducted a quick 2 minute study and learned that there may be some correlation. Checking out the birthdays on this list of folks who have lived the longest (click here) I only found one person who listed 23 November as his/her birthday.
However, I also found this study (click here) that noted that women born in the month of November live on the average 7 months longer than those who were born in May. November-born men live almost 1 year longer than their May counterparts. Overall, the study found that people born in the fall months live longer than those who were born in the spring months.
Just to test this fall-to-spring theory then, I went back to the list of folks who have lived the longest and counted 30 folks with fall birthdays but only 26 with spring birthdays. (I’m guessing that with 100 people on the list and 4 seasons to choose from, the average should have been around 25 birthdays in each season. Then again I’m no stats kinda guy so take all that with a grain of something.) It does seem to imply however, that fall birthday folks tend to hang around a little longer than those born in the spring.
But back to Sister Marceline who turned 104 yesterday. My cousin Sister Marianne confirms that Sister Marceline is still doing well and is now the oldest sister in their Community. Congrats to her and again to Hattie for serving as role models for all of us on how to age gracefully. I particularly liked Hattie’s outlook expressed in her bio “to smile and speak to everyone with kindness to make them feel comfortable.” Good words to live by wouldn’t you say?
Here is one of the all time best music scenes in a movie. I like it when the cute little red headed nun cuts loose at the 2:14 mark.