100-Year-Olds Who Still Work, Drive, Live Alone Share Longevity Secrets

Turning 100 is a big deal. The U.S. is home to 101,000 centenarians, or just 0.03% of the population — a number that’s projected to quadruple in the next three decades, according to the Pew Research Center.

Jimmy Carter joined the club this year, becoming the first U.S. president to reach the century mark.

TODAY.com met several extraordinary centenarians in 2024. Some are still living on their own, working, driving and falling in love.

Many listed home-cooking as both a factor in their longevity and something they love doing.

Here are some of their top tips for a long healthy life:

Don’t retire — keep working if you love it

At 100 years old, Miriam Todd works more hours than many young people. She’s at her family’s furniture store in Stratford, New Jersey, six days a week, for at least 50 hours total.

“I can’t say I’m working when I enjoy what I’m doing, so I feel guilty if I say I’m working,” Todd told TODAY.com.

“It’s not for everybody, but it works well for me.”

She still drives a car, does all the grocery shopping and cooks everything from scratch.

Many of the ingredients she cooks with come from her garden, where she grows tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, yellow squash and zucchini. 

Todd doesn’t eat fried foods or fast food, and she generally avoids alcohol.

“I try and eat right, sleep right and live right,” she says.

Find meals that sustain your body and soul

Ruth Onley, who is a supercentenarian at 110, says one of her longevity secrets is cooking and enjoying food.

The Maryland woman used to prepare a soul food buffet every Sunday after church for her family and neighbors.

The menu included chicken salad sandwiches, roast chicken, ham, candied sweet potatoes, greens, macaroni and cheese, cabbage, fried chicken, peach cobbler and pound cake.

Food is still an important part of her life, including eating oatmeal, Cream of Wheat or whole-grain pancakes every morning, as is having fun with card and board games.

She credits her family’s love for living so long: “It’s the way my children take care of me,” Onley told TODAY.com.

Practice self-love and eat papaya every day

Pearl Taylor, 103, is known as the “Jamaican grandma” on TikTok, where she shares her life advice.

What is the secret to a long life? “Love. I really love myself,” the centenarian, who lives in Dayton, Ohio, said in one viral clip. “You have got to think about yourself first. You help yourself first.”

Self-love is the only way you can feel happy because when love is coming from you, you can extend it to others, she told TODAY.com.

Taylor eats papaya every morning, a habit she urges other people to try. Papaya is packed with so many nutrients, it’s been called the “fruit of long life.”

Taylor also drinks green juice every other day, which she credits for her good digestion, and believes home-cooking is important for good health.

Don’t waste time on regrets

At 102, Deborah Szekely is a member of the “never retire” club.

She works three days a week at Rancho La Puerta, the resort she started with her late husband in 1940 in Tecate, Baja California, Mexico.

“When nature says, ‘You got to stop, Deborah,’ Deborah will stop. Until then, she’ll keep going,” Szekely told CNBC Make It.

Her health routine includes walking every day and staying positive.

She also believes in a philosophy of no regrets.

“Don’t waste time looking back. That’s a total waste of time. You can’t do anything about it, it’s done. Look forward, and look forward to things that you want,” she said.

Focus on fruits and vegetables, skip the sugar

Dorothy Staten, 106, still lives in her own apartment in El Paso, Texas.

“Everybody needs their own place,” her daughter, Rosie Lyles, who lives across the hall, told TODAY.com.

Much of Staten’s longevity advice is centered around diet. The former professional cook likes to eat carrots, broccoli, fresh greens and spinach — all vegetables with powerful health benefits.

Pinto beans — an excellent source of plant-based protein and fiber — are one of her favorite foods.

She also loves watermelon and cantaloupe

The centenarian doesn’t eat any sugar or sweets. “Sugar is not good,” she says. “It can give you diabetes.”

Love is powerful at any age

Marjorie Fiterman, 102, and Bernie Littman, 100, got married in May in Philadelphia, nine years after they met at a party in their retirement community.

With their combined ages of 202 years and 271 days, the pair is the oldest couple to marry by aggregate age, Guinness World Records confirmed in December.

They realized, “’I don’t want to live without you,’ and so it was just a ‘Why don’t we get married?’ sort of thing,” the groom’s granddaughter, Sarah Sicherman, told TODAY.com.

“We’re just so happy that he’s found someone that he loves spending time with.”

Have an appetite for the good things in life

Felix Joseph Pelosi is the grandfather of cookbook author Dan Pelosi, aka “GrossyPelosi.”

The 102-year-old, who goes by the nickname Bimpy, still enthusiastically tucks into lasagna, pasta, meatballs and other Italian American favorites his grandson prepares.

“He has an appetite unlike anything I have ever seen,” the younger Pelosi notes.

The centenarian says eating three good meals a day is one of his longevity secrets — “lots of fish, pasta, vegetables and sweets,” he told TODAY.com.

Stay positive and joyful

Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, 105, is known as the “basketball nun.”

She continues to work at least five days a week as chaplain for the men’s basketball team at Loyola University in Chicago.

“It just makes me very joyful,” she told TODAY.com. “I don’t consider it really working. I just have so much fun.”

The nun says she’s never been depressed and believes it takes too much energy to be stressed out.

She wakes up at 5 a.m. and pauses for a 30-minute meditation. Then at night, she takes time to think about all the good things she did that day.

“I still go to bed every night with a smile on my face, gratitude in my heart, and love in my soul,” she writes in her memoir.