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| Lorraine Bannach |
Desplaines Valley News
Three days shy of Lorraine Bannach's 107th birthday, near
the end of a 90-minute chat, a visitor tells the Lyons resident she doesn't
look a day over 80.
Lorraine's neighbor, John Seplak, leans in and says a few soft words to the guest.
"No whispering," Bannach admonishes.
"I told him the secret," Seplak says, pointing to his head.
Bannach smiles, reaches up and pulls off her wig. The reveal is not enough difference in the hair department to change the earlier sentiment, but it does reinforce what Bannach's former doctor wrote to her way back in 1988, when she was a spring chicken of 82:
"You've got a good attitude."
Asked to describe that attitude, Bannach shrugged, saying, "I'm kind."
Indeed, describing a life that began June 3, 1906, in Lublin, Wis., Bannach knocks out the lowlights succinctly.
A hard childhood?
"My life wasn't like little girls should have. I was pushed around by my stepfather … I fought him off."
A brother-in-law who treated her baby sister poorly?
"He wasn't the kind of guy who made things better."
Her first White Castle hamburger, sampled only six months ago?
"I didn't like it," she says, making a face.
Perhaps that's because Bannach grinds her own meat when she wants a burger. Same with her homemade Polish sausage. More often, though, she makes her favorite, pork chops, or chicken with noodles.
Regardless, she eats well.
"My secret is this: Eat good food," she says. "My way of thinking is this: you overeat, you break yourself down."
If there is another secret to her longevity, perhaps it is this:
"And I've got good credit, all over."
Her century-plus of all over has been spent mostly in the Chicago area. Bannach started coming to Chicago at age 15, working winters at Western Electric before returning to Lublin each spring to work the family farm.
Lorraine's neighbor, John Seplak, leans in and says a few soft words to the guest.
"No whispering," Bannach admonishes.
"I told him the secret," Seplak says, pointing to his head.
Bannach smiles, reaches up and pulls off her wig. The reveal is not enough difference in the hair department to change the earlier sentiment, but it does reinforce what Bannach's former doctor wrote to her way back in 1988, when she was a spring chicken of 82:
"You've got a good attitude."
Asked to describe that attitude, Bannach shrugged, saying, "I'm kind."
Indeed, describing a life that began June 3, 1906, in Lublin, Wis., Bannach knocks out the lowlights succinctly.
A hard childhood?
"My life wasn't like little girls should have. I was pushed around by my stepfather … I fought him off."
A brother-in-law who treated her baby sister poorly?
"He wasn't the kind of guy who made things better."
Her first White Castle hamburger, sampled only six months ago?
"I didn't like it," she says, making a face.
Perhaps that's because Bannach grinds her own meat when she wants a burger. Same with her homemade Polish sausage. More often, though, she makes her favorite, pork chops, or chicken with noodles.
Regardless, she eats well.
"My secret is this: Eat good food," she says. "My way of thinking is this: you overeat, you break yourself down."
If there is another secret to her longevity, perhaps it is this:
"And I've got good credit, all over."
Her century-plus of all over has been spent mostly in the Chicago area. Bannach started coming to Chicago at age 15, working winters at Western Electric before returning to Lublin each spring to work the family farm.
After her mother died when Lorraine was 18, she eventually
landed in Chicago full time, taking a job as a dishwasher in a Polish
restaurant on the North Side.
She'd worked her way up to waitress by the time she met a customer who would become her future husband, Ben.
Ben and Lorraine owned a home in Round Lake for a time, then moved to an apartment in Chicago where they lived together for seven or eight years before Ben's death. That was nearly 60 years ago. She never remarried.
"I had my chances," she says. "But Lorraine was Lorraine."
She says it without regret. She says everything, it seems, without regret.
Even while noting her love for the house in Round Lake, her garden that took up "half a lot," she laughs off the notion of trading that in for an apartment.
"Who would rent for 50 years?" she says, laughing. "But no, I wouldn't do anything different. I don't think so."
Oh, maybe she would have kept a list of all the places she visited after Ben's death.
"I think I've only missed about nine United States," she says.
And she might have given up on TV a bit sooner.
"There's nothing on TV I care for," she says. "It's all killings, murder. I like good, clean programs."
Give her a Bing Crosby movie any day. Better yet, give her the hands and legs to go bowling again.
As it is, Bannach uses a walker — "my boyfriend," she calls it — to get around. She voluntarily gave up driving at age 102, noting, "I didn't want to kill myself or somebody else."
She was relying on Seplak to take her to a planned rib dinner for her birthday. The itinerary for her last day as a 106-year-old included a stop at former Lyons Mayor Ken Getty's annual block party.
And always, there are card games with Seplak and her caregiver, a woman who spends a few hours each day with Bannach, plus plenty of things to read.
Bannach taught herself to read and write — in English and Polish — with her mother's help after her stepfather made her quit school after just three years. She still reads the Polish newspapers Seplak brings from another neighbor in their seniors complex on Ogden Avenue.
On one, there is a photo of Barack Obama, prompting a question: Who is Bannach's favorite president?
"Roosevelt," she says, without hesitation.
Which one?
"Franklin," she says. "He gave us Social Security. The rest of them haven't done much."
The choice isn't as remarkable, perhaps, as the question. There are very few people alive who have lived through parts of the presidencies of Theodore (1901-1909) and Franklin D. (1933-1945) Roosevelt.
Though U.S. Census Bureau projections suggest upward of 200,000 centenarians will be living in the United States by 2020, the Gerontology Group reports there are only 58 living "supercentenarians" — age 110 or older — alive in the world at this writing.
The oldest living Illinoisan is Maywood's Wash Wesley, who turned 110 in January.
"Just three more years?" Bannach says. "That wouldn't be much.
"Right now, I could turn the devil over. All the laughing, all the talking, it makes me feel good."
She'd worked her way up to waitress by the time she met a customer who would become her future husband, Ben.
Ben and Lorraine owned a home in Round Lake for a time, then moved to an apartment in Chicago where they lived together for seven or eight years before Ben's death. That was nearly 60 years ago. She never remarried.
"I had my chances," she says. "But Lorraine was Lorraine."
She says it without regret. She says everything, it seems, without regret.
Even while noting her love for the house in Round Lake, her garden that took up "half a lot," she laughs off the notion of trading that in for an apartment.
"Who would rent for 50 years?" she says, laughing. "But no, I wouldn't do anything different. I don't think so."
Oh, maybe she would have kept a list of all the places she visited after Ben's death.
"I think I've only missed about nine United States," she says.
And she might have given up on TV a bit sooner.
"There's nothing on TV I care for," she says. "It's all killings, murder. I like good, clean programs."
Give her a Bing Crosby movie any day. Better yet, give her the hands and legs to go bowling again.
As it is, Bannach uses a walker — "my boyfriend," she calls it — to get around. She voluntarily gave up driving at age 102, noting, "I didn't want to kill myself or somebody else."
She was relying on Seplak to take her to a planned rib dinner for her birthday. The itinerary for her last day as a 106-year-old included a stop at former Lyons Mayor Ken Getty's annual block party.
And always, there are card games with Seplak and her caregiver, a woman who spends a few hours each day with Bannach, plus plenty of things to read.
Bannach taught herself to read and write — in English and Polish — with her mother's help after her stepfather made her quit school after just three years. She still reads the Polish newspapers Seplak brings from another neighbor in their seniors complex on Ogden Avenue.
On one, there is a photo of Barack Obama, prompting a question: Who is Bannach's favorite president?
"Roosevelt," she says, without hesitation.
Which one?
"Franklin," she says. "He gave us Social Security. The rest of them haven't done much."
The choice isn't as remarkable, perhaps, as the question. There are very few people alive who have lived through parts of the presidencies of Theodore (1901-1909) and Franklin D. (1933-1945) Roosevelt.
Though U.S. Census Bureau projections suggest upward of 200,000 centenarians will be living in the United States by 2020, the Gerontology Group reports there are only 58 living "supercentenarians" — age 110 or older — alive in the world at this writing.
The oldest living Illinoisan is Maywood's Wash Wesley, who turned 110 in January.
"Just three more years?" Bannach says. "That wouldn't be much.
"Right now, I could turn the devil over. All the laughing, all the talking, it makes me feel good."
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