Secret of Long Life

How old can a man be? Consider Charlie Smith, who last week celebrated what he calculated to be his 125th birthday in Bartow, Fla. A spry ex-slave, Charlie runs a small cold-drink and candy shop and thrives on raw sausages, crackers, 7UP, and telling people how old he is. Naturally, he has his secrets of longevity: "I never drink no green [plain] milk--only chocolate. I don't eat no table food--cooked stuff is not too good for me."

Out of loyalty to his country, Smith arbitrarily celebrates his birthday on the Fourth of July. He says he was born in Liberia in 1842, the son of one Lindy Watkins. When he was only twelve, he was lured on board a slave ship commanded by a Captain Legree and taken to the U.S. He was sold, assumed his owner's name and was freed after the Civil War. Some of his story seems to check out: Watkins was a common name in Liberia in the 1840s, and slave-ship records actually list two slave-ship captains named Legree. Charlie also recalls a few words of what has been identified as a Liberian dialect.

Lengthy Gaps. Smith's claim to great age has more documentary support than most, but it is not enough. None of the "evidence" specifically mentions him, or proves he was born where and when he says he was. There is no sure biological way to check his age or anyone else's. His account of his life contains lengthy, vague gaps. And though his memory goes far back, some suggest that what he is remembering about events is what he was told years after they had happened--just like Bridey Murphy, whose claims of "reincarnation" created such a stir a decade ago.

Most people tend to understate their age until they near 90; then longevity suddenly becomes a source of greater pride than irretrievable youth. Age 95 is a point at which many oldsters decide to call themselves "centenarians."

After that, they seem to age 15 years in the ten-year interval between U.S. censuses. Chief Actuary Robert J. Myers of the Social Security Administration has analyzed the 1960 census report of 10,000 self-proclaimed centenarians in the U.S. and concludes that the true number was no more than 3,700.

Well-documented records of the longevity of Civil War veterans give Myers his most solid evidence of the true rate of attrition by age. Of 2,100,000 men in the Union Army in the 1860s, there were 430,000 drawing pensions in 1914, all of whom had given reasonably satisfactory proof of age. By 1945--at which date one of those 15-year-old drummer boys who enlisted in the last weeks of the war would have to be 95--there were only 210 Union veterans left. In 1954, only one survived, and he died at 110.

Records & Recollections. How can a centenarian prove his age? In most cases the only evidence is his own word. Though some Western European countries began keeping good birth records in the 18th century, the U.S. was slow to follow. Massachusetts began in 1841, followed by other New England states. Significantly, there are no reports of incredibly advanced age from areas that keep good birth records. Dr. Belle Boone Beard, a University of Georgia anthropologist, lists 28 ways of proving age. They vary in reliability from college-entrance or graduation records to marriage, insurance and naturalization records. For former slaves like Charlie Smith, Dr. Beard recognizes ships' manifests, bills of sale, deeds and wills as at least helpful evidence.

So far, none of these records has documented the survival of a U.S. citizen past 111 years. Nor have the incredible assertions of such hardy Soviet peasants as Shirali Muslimov, who claims to be 161 or more, been borne out. One likely reason for their confusion is that in parts of Central Asia years are computed in twelve-year cycles, each year being named for an animal. Thus a man born in the year of the horse might have been born in 1846 or 1858 or 1870--and not understand the difference in time.

The inability to document claims of extreme age helps establish a useful outer limit for doctors who deal with the aged--and in no way detracts from the charm of such local characters as Charlie Smith and Sylvester Magee, another former slave from Hattiesburg, Miss., who claimed to be celebrating his 126th birthday last May 29. Magee's eyes are bright and alert, his face marvelously expressive, and until four years ago he was still working in the cotton fields. His recollections of life as a slave and of his later service in the Union Army are remarkably detailed, but a family Bible that recorded his birth date happened to be lost when his cabin burned down four years ago. That doesn't bother Magee. After all, Lyndon Johnson sent him special greetings for his 124th birthday in 1965, and last year he discovered the earthly delights of wine and cigarettes. With an eye to the pearly gates, however, he is afraid of sleep. "I'm an old man, you know," he chuckled before his latest birthday party. "I could go any minute."

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