CATCHING UP WITH LIONS CENTAGENARIAN JEANNETTE BARR BACZUK

                                       JEANNETTE IN FRONT OF HOME OF SON, JIM, WITH JIM'S WIFE, RACHELLE
 

                                  JEANNETTE BARR BACZUK ON  SANTA'S LAP AT AN EARLIER BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION 

                                JEANNETTE IN CLEVELAND BASEBALL CLOTHING
     

                        BIRTHDAY GIRL JEANNETTE WITH A PRESENT

                 JEANNETTE WITH SON JIM

                         JEANNETTE WITH A HUGE FAN IN THE FAMILY    

                    

CATCHING UP WITH

Lions centagenarian Jeannette Barr Baczuk

 

I’ll let Jim Baczuk provide an update on Jeannette Barr Baczuk, Class of 1940, that I requested from him:

 

“Mom had a pretty good 2023. She still lives in the Belmont Tower where you attended her 100th birthday.

 

“In August 2023 I brought her to West Virginia for a few days. We hung out at the house and visited Blackwater Falls State Park.

 

“We also visited our friends Mike, Anne and James Wardwell. I believe you posted a picture of my 6 foot 6 friend Mike with Mom on your blog previously.

 

“She turned 101 January 6th of this year. We planned a birthday luncheon in Ashland, but I finally caught Covid and could not attend. The rest of the family made it. Not as big an affair as the 100th.

 

“Other than visiting the family when I come up, most of her activities are centered around the Belmont Tower. She goes to exercise class, plays bingo, does trivia etc. She always avails herself of the drives they take around the county on a small bus.”

 

I ALWAYS enjoy visiting Lions who are older than me.

 

Jeannette’s father was the legendary Dr. James Barr in Worthington who brought most of the town’s population into the world.

Claire Suzanne Loss, who passed away in 2016, was Jeannette’s sister. Suzi was married to Arnold “J.B.” Loss for 65 years.

Other Jeannette siblings are Jim Barr, Harrelson Barr and Hazel Barr Vrabel.

I sat at the same table in the 2021 Monongah High Alumni Banquet with Kathren Herndon Loss, Class of 1942, who was 99 then which means she’s probably 102 by now.

Leo Kubiet, Lionel Nichols, Dorothy Stevenski Kerns and Irene Satterfield Thompson, all deceased, were in Kathren’s Class of 1942.

Amelia Shenasky Zentz, Class of 1938, was 102 when she passed away in Monongah, where she lived on Shenasky Lane, named for her parents, Pete and Nell Shenasky who had the P.P. Shenasky Grocery in Monongah next door to Thoburn Elementary School for decades. I visited Amelia when I made my trips to Monongah year after year.

I have a ways to go since I will only be 92 on November 5, 2024. As Class of 1950, a child compared to Jeannette and Kathren and Amelia.

Maria Branyas of Spain is the oldest living person documented, at 117 years old. She was born in 1907.

Tomiko Itooka is 115 years old, living in Ashiya, Japan. She was born in Osaka, Japan in 1908, the same year that Omaj Canabarro Lucas was born in Brazil.

Arjun, the oldest lion ever, was 28 when she died after spending her life in zoos from birth, from South African, to Philadelphia, to Columbus, Ohio and then returned to Philadelphia where she passed away.