Miscellany: Centenarian Plus

A guest of honor at the Philadelphia Board of Trade’s 100th anniversary dinner last week was Dr. Charlotte DeGolier Davenport, a spry little wisp of a woman who lately celebrated her 100th birthday. Surrounded by newshawks, she puffed cigarets as she talked vigorously of this & that. She said that she was born in 1824, the daughter of a Russian prince named Paszkoff, married when she was 15, had a baby when she was 16, was widowed a year later. At 18 she married again and had ten sons, all still living. The eldest, 93, lives in Madrid; another is “the richest man in Buenos Aires.” She studied medicine at a Vienna university. In 1893, at 69, she married “a wonderful creature,” U. S.-born William H. Davenport, who was 21 years old at the time, now works for the London Times. “And no more sons?” inquired Reporter Mac Parker of the Philadelphia Record. “My dear, it was only platonic. But I adore him. I hope never to become Amer icanized, but because of him I love all Americans.” Dr. Davenport said that she weighed 89 lb. “I eat very little; just enough — a grated carrot twice a day, a quart of orange juice, a quart of sour milk. It is enough.” She walks three miles a day regularly, rides horseback occasionally. Of Philadelphia Dr. Davenport said: “There’s too much mental and physical constipation; not enough gospel of laughter, too much primping and painting. … I haven’t time to die. When I do die, I will not die by inches. I don’t want the doctors to cut out this and cut out that. It’s a swindle to die like that. And I’ve pulled out of so many places where I could have died naturally that I feel now that I can go when I want to. Possibly, in time, I shall just jump into the water somewhere.”