Forever Young: A Westporter's Secret to Longevity

A love of family and the simple pleasures of life. Being blessed with both is the easiest explanation for Laurie Margaret Miller's remarkable feat: she has lived to be 107 years old.

And on September 6, the sweet and gentle Westport transplant turns 108 years old.

"I'm as old as the hills," said Loretta breezily during a recent interview at the  Tamarac Road home where she has lived for the past 8 years with her only child, Muriel Durner.

It's probable that Loretta is Westport's most senior citizen; the Center for Senior Activities has no records of anyone older.

Aside from a hearing deficiency, Loretta is doing wonderfully for someone who  was born exactly a year after President William McKinley's assassination in 1901 that catapulted Theodore Roosevelt to the White House.

She underwent a partial hip replacement at age 104 and only takes one pill and a multivitamin daily.

Her hair still retains natural dark coloration, in contrast with Muriel, whose hair is all white. Commenting on the difference, Loretta said modestly, "It just grows the way it's supposed to."

Loretta was reading a local newspaper with a little magnifying glass, relaxing after a busy morning - a mother-daughter date at the hairdresser (The Hair Place in Westport) and lunch together at a favored locale (Penny's Diner in East Norwalk) - when she sat for an interview with Patch.

Her memory is sharp and it took just the tiniest prompting for her to remember the name of the current president: after she heard the letter "O" she got it.

"It makes me kind of mad" not to have the answer on the tip of her tongue, Loretta said.

She grew up in College Point, Queens, living through World War I, the Great Depression and World War II. This devoted mother with a watchful eye had an extended family around to help ride the ups and downs. There was an outhouse in the backyard and a day of fun meant a trolley trip into Flushing and $.05 cowboy movie matinees.

Loretta has pleasant memories of growing up with three brothers and recalls vividly the time one brother took her to the nearby beach and left her flailing in the water in a panic, before she had learned to swim, as a prank. She went along with his pleas to keep the mischief a secret from their mother.

Her family moved to Norwalk after her father died at a relatively early age - 55 – and it was there that she married Henry E. Olsen on October 6, 1924, and gave birth to Muriel. She briefly worked at a Norwalk shirt collar factory earning $25 a week, but her life was of the low-stress variety.

"She never drove (no road rage) and did not have to punch the clock and go to work every day!" wrote her granddaughter Patricia Durner in an e-mail after she was asked to explain Loretta's longevity.

"She was active – she loved to walk, dance and swim," Patricia wrote. "She never smoked... even today, she enjoys a little Baileys Irish Cream every now and again!"

Patricia said Loretta takes pleasure in small things.

"Receiving balloons makes her smile ear to ear," she wrote.

Movies and TV are out for Loretta because of her hearing loss, but her great pleasures are outings with Muriel, who worked for 28 years as a secretary for the Westport Fire Department, and visits with family members, especially great great-grandson Aiden James Madsen, 16 months, who lives in Enfield.

Loretta moved in with her daughter when she was 99 years old after managing alone at her home in East Norwalk was proving too difficult.

"I wouldn't have it any other way!" said Muriel, snuggled on the couch next to Loretta, their blue eyes and pink fingernails matching. "It's amazing. It's awesome!"

Muriel has the assistance of Naomi Smith, a caretaker from Jamaica, whom she describes as "an angel in disguise, she's funny, compassionate and she's a member of the family."

Loretta is used to being asked what accounts for her longevity.

"That's a good question," she replies. "Sometimes when I have been sick, I'd say, well, this is it and I'd never tell anyone – and it wasn't it and here I am."