MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — Less than an hour before his 100th birthday party, Herb Davis is crying. He takes off his glasses and wipes his eyes.
He’s talked about all the good in his life — and all he is still able to do — but now he’s talking about what he’s lost. He’s talking about Katie, his wife of 66 years. A woman he met at Lesourdville Lake. A woman whose first date with him was a flight in an airplane Davis piloted.
Now, he’s talking about how he took care of her when she got dementia.
“I’m sorry,” Davis says, stopping the interview for a moment.
On a couch in his living room sit two of Davis’s sons. One hands him a handkerchief with tears in his own eyes.
“They were a special couple, and I'm proud of him for how he took care of her while she was dying,” said Jim Davis, one of their three sons. “No one could have done better.”
In this room, there are tears. But soon, there’s laughter. Because Herb Davis is turning 100. And there’s a lot to celebrate. Davis is an Army veteran still living independently. He even works out three times a week.
“It just means that I’m old,” he says through laughter. “But life is still good.”
When asked what makes it good, he responds quickly.
“Family,” he says.
And on Tuesday, Davis celebrates his milestone with five generations of that family — including a 6-month-old child.
“It’s everything,” he says.
At the American Legion in Middletown, representatives from the Ohio governor’s office and Butler County Veterans Service Commission honored Davis for his military record.
“I was lucky because I didn’t have a high school education,” Davis says. “The military was one of the best things to happen to me.”
Before the party, his son recalled flying with his dad most weekends as a kid. It made him feel special. Something he felt again when he visited recently and found his dad trying to pull bushes out of the front yard by himself.
“I’m still learning from him,” Jim Davis said. “Even now, I still want to be like him.”
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