102 Years Old and Living His OPUS

I am sure many of you are familiar with the word OPUS (Love of Labor), Chet has been blogging about OPUS for many years and challenging all of us to get out of our comfort zones and get on that path to building a stronger CORE and finding the clarity you must have to lead a Life of OPUS!

If there were one person I could point to who is living a life of OPUS, it would be our friend Art who was 102 years old Sunday. I bet many of you picture a man at 102 on a walker and maybe even feeble, unable to move on his own. When I picked Art up on Sunday to celebrate his birthday, he was standing at the door waiting for me unattended. He was holding a dozen roses for my wife Chris who had organized a beautiful birthday celebration for Art and our friends.  As Art opened the car door and seated himself in the car fastening his seat belt, he gave me his familiar greeting, “My good friend Pete, what a beautiful day it is! Aren’t we lucky!”

As we drove down the road his curious mind goes in over drive…”What do you think about all these condo’s, not sure architecturally they fit the neighborhood, what do you think? Can you believe all the new building at Riverside Hospital and OSU; we are so lucky to have this type of care in Columbus!” He will ask about my day, work, family and travel plans, he is genuinely curious about YOU!

My wife Chris is pretty darn curious herself and has a great time getting Art to talk about his early days in business and the stories are consistently wrapped in his values, beliefs and principals.

He talks about his friend Jimmy from Cambridge who moved to Columbus during the depression and found a job at OSU and then found a job for Art. They were given a room big enough for one person with one hot meal a day and for a long time it was there only meal of the day. Art says, “I am so thankful for Jimmy’s friendship, he stuck his neck out for me and got me my first real job, we were friends for life!

Art then got a job selling insurance door to door and he loved, it “I always met so many interesting people, they became my fiends and one in particular lent me the money to go into my own insurance business………You meet so many good people along the way!”

Art built a successful Insurance Agency, Turner and Shepherd, and at a 102 he still talks about his good friend and partner Floyd Turner and how lucky he was to be Floyd’s partner.

Art had two wonderful marriages each lasting an amazing 40 years. Beatrice, the mother of his two daughters who died in 1972 and Dottie who passed away at age 98 in 2012. Art say’s, “I was a lucky man to have loved two wonderful women.”

Art is always talking about the importance of giving back to others, getting involved and making it better for all.  After the death of his daughter Lynn from cancer, he set up an endowment for Cancer Research at the James. He set up Scholarships for students at Cambridge High School where he went to school. He was one of the first people to fund research at Children’s Hospital. He has endowed a Professorship at the Fisher School of Business…and the list goes on! What does Art say about all this, “I have been blessed with so much, I am so fortunate, so darn lucky to have lived in Columbus, in America?”

And when you ask Art what his secret is to his longevity, he answers, “No secret at all, I just try to exercise a little everyday, stretching, walking and using my hand weights (small dumbbells) for resistance, and I drink one shot of Jack Daniels each night, not two, not three…… Just One!” (And he’s not kidding!)

Deeply Held Beliefs

Strong Principles

Big Dreams

Good Habits

Love of Family

Enduring friendships

Giving Back

Happy Birthday Art, A Life Well Lived, OPUS!