Dorothy Peel died in 2014 at the age of 111. When she was 85 her doctor told her to quit smoking, and she eventually did, after a bout of bronchitis, at the age of 103. Her family suspected, however, that she secretly continued to smoke an occasional cigarette. She remained mentally sharp till her death and remembered both world wars and having barely survived a bombing which killed her close neighbors during World War II. When asked her secret to living so long, other than quitting smoking, she had no idea. “It’s just that nothing seems to kill me,” she said.

Sources: The Sun (UK), September 28, 2012; Hull Daily Mail (UK), July 03, 2014

John McMorran died at the age of 113 on February 24, 2003, in Lakeland, Florida. The Gerontology Research Group at the University of California had verified Mr. McMorran’s age and determined him to have been the fifth oldest man in history. In 2000, at the age of 111, he said to a reporter “I drink a cup of coffee before every meal and stay away from cheap whiskey.” Younger relatives of Mr. McMorran revealed, however, that he had given up alcohol in his 50s, but continued enjoying tobacco—chewing, smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, or his pipe—until he was 97. He outlived two siblings, his wife of 50 years, and their only son. He was a great great grandfather.

Source: Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2003

With two of her 11 children.

On November 10, 2016, Maria Centeio of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, who has smoked for 94 years, celebrated her 106^th birthday. Six years ago when smoking was banned in Pawtucket public housing where she lives, Ms. Centeio at the age of 100 switched to a pipe, which she carries it with her everywhere she goes. So far—knock on wood— housing officials have let her smoke her pipe.

She was born in 1910 in Cape Verde and credits her vigorous long life to the simple foods she ate as a child and continues to enjoy; doing whatever makes her happy; and keeping a calm demeanor. She started smoking when she was 12 and has no plans to quit.

Source: The Valley Breeze (Lincoln Rhode Island), November 15, 2016

Alfred Z. Solomon, an avid cigar smoker, retired at age 95, played golf at 100, and for 50 years was a regular at the Saratoga Race Course in New York State where he could be seen smoking a cigar and nursing a bourbon. He began his career as a hat designer in New York City’s Garment District in the 1920s and went on to found Madcaps, a wholesale women’s hat company, which instituted many innovations in the way American women bought hats. Mr. Solomon died in 2004 at the age of 104.

Helen Faith Keane Reichert died in 2011 at the age of 109 in New York City where she had lived her entire life. A year earlier Mrs. Reichert in an interview in the German magazine Der Spiegel, said “I’ve been smoking for more than 80 years, all day long, every day. That’s a whole lot of cigarettes.” For many years she had taught fashion retailing at New York University and had hosted a television talk show.

Dr. Nir Barzilai a geneticist at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who studies centenarians and was familiar with Mrs. Reichert, was quoted in The Boston Globe saying that “as a group, they haven’t done the right things.’’ According to Dr. Barzali, many centenarians smoked, some were fat, and few were vegetarian.

Jack Priestly began smoking cigarettes at nine and enjoyed them so much that he was soon smoking two packs a day. He continued doing so until at the age of 58, on the advice of his doctor, he replaced his cigarettes with ten Corona cigars daily. In 2008 Mr. Priestly celebrated his 100th birthday with 60 family members in Pinchbeck, England. He had lived alone since his wife died, but kept busy grocery shopping, tending his garden, and driving around town. At his party he explained “I love my cigars. I wouldn’t be without them…. From all the government warnings you see these days you’d think everyone would be too scared to go near a box of matches let alone take up smoking. But it’s never done me any harm.” When he was 24 his mother-in-law advised him to drink a shot of whiskey before breakfast each morning. He followed her advice for the rest of his life. Mr. Priestly died in 2014.

Richard Overton, left, smokes a cigar with friends Donna Short, center, and Martin Wilford.
(Photo) Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin Statesman via AP file

Richard Overton, the oldest United States veteran, celebrated his 110^th birthday May 11^th, at the home of a neighbor in Austin Texas, where Mr. Overton has lived all of his life.

He began smoking cigars at the age of 18 and has continued to enjoy them every day for the last 92 years. His favorite is a Tampa Sweet and he smokes about a dozen a day at 40 cents each. “The cigars are my friend. They keep me company,” he says. He stays active, tending his own lawn, and still drives his 1973 Ford pickup.

Every morning he enjoys a little whisky in his coffee and likes butter pecan ice cream at night.

Mr. Overton saw combat during World War Two in the Pacific Theater and lost many friends there experience. He has outlived two wives and has no children.

In 1998, when Marie-Louise Meilleur died in Ontario, Canada, at the age of 117, the Guinness Book of World Records had verified that she was the world’s oldest known living person. In addition to four children, she was survived by 85 grandchildren, 80 great-grandchildren, 57 great-great-grandchildren and 4 great-great-great-grandchildren. She had smoked into her nineties, and finally succumbed to a blood clot.