How Did Allen Fink Live to Be 100 Years Old?

Women did not yet have the right to vote. The first American transcontinental highway for cars was four months from completion and dedication. Four months earlier, Woodrow Wilson had succeeded William Howard Taft as president of the United States.

It was July 3, 1913, the day Allen Fink was born in a Salisbury Township farmhouse with no electricity, telephone or running water.

Now, Fink’s 100th birthday is just a week away and it is the talk of Traditions of Hanover, the independent living retirement community where he lives, which is marking the occasion with a special celebration Thursday evening at the Hanover Township Community Center, 3660 Jacksonville Road.

The sponsors of Thursday’s event—from 5:30 to 8 p.m.—are calling it an evening of education and celebration. Community members are invited to learn Fink’s “tips and tricks for staying healthy throughout the years.”

A few weeks back, Fink was invited to the Lehigh Valley Academy to share his years of experience with the school’s second graders.

There, he talked about life in rural Lehigh County when he was a boy, without radio, television or any of life’s modern amenities. He talked about attending class in a one-room schoolhouse with no electricity or plumbing.

While he was in 4th grade taught himself to play church hymns and entertained at the Macungie Grange and social halls in exchange for payment.

He finished a portion of the 6th grade and all of 7th grade in one year. Fink graduated from the 8th grade in the Spring of 1926, but soon had to quit schooling because his mother became gravely ill.

In fact, Fink provided a live blood transfusion to his mother in an operating room before blood donation and transfusions were routine. His dream was to become a preacher and a missionary, but his lack of schooling prevented that from happening.

He and his father raised peas and tomatoes for the Campbell’s Soup Company. He later would become a “bobbin boy” at Widder Brothers Silk Mill. He worked from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. for 15 cents an hour and would give all his pay to his father to help support the family.

He was later drafted into the Army during World War II and served in occupied Japan.

Asked by one boy why he has been able to live this long, he talked about his faith in God, his patience, the slow heartbeat he inherited from his mother (who also lived to be 100) and his self discipline to eat fruits and vegetables even when he doesn’t like them.