100-year-old Elgin man's birthday includes police visit - the good kind

Charles "Chuck" Terry has lived for 62 years in his two-bedroom Cape Cod-style house in Elgin, and that doesn't even amount to two-thirds of his life.

Terry turned 100 on July 28, when he got a surprise visit from Elgin police Chief Jeff Swoboda and other members of the police department who brought him a cupcake with a candle and sang "Happy Birthday." The next evening he was feted at dinner by 27 relatives, including great-great-grandchildren.

The celebration was bittersweet, he said, because his only sister, Beverly Aurand of Monroe, Wisconsin, had died two days earlier on July 26. Still, living a long life is a great accomplishment, he said.

"We all die. I just might wake up dead myself," he said. "The sad thing is when young children die."

Terry was married for 64 years until his wife, Alice, died at age 87 in 2003 after suffering a stroke, he said. When asked if he had a good marriage, he replied, "I would never do anything different."

The couple had a son, also named Charles, who died of cancer at age 62. "He was really young," Terry said.

Terry has come to know members of the police department in recent years thanks to their fraud prevention work with seniors, he said.

Terry built his Elgin home in 1955 and did all the work himself, from pouring cement to installing yellow tiles on the kitchen ceiling - a request from his late wife, he said, "so we wouldn't have to paint it ever again."

"The only thing I didn't do was the plastering because I didn't know how to do that," he said.

Terry was born in Chicago on July 28, 1917. He lived in the city until the Great Depression of 1929 forced his family to move to a cabin near Springbrook, Wisconsin. For a time, he worked for $1 a day hauling stones off farm fields and cleaning steer pens, he said.

His family moved back to the Chicago area in 1933; he got married at age 23 and lived in Algonquin before settling in Elgin in 1945.

Terry worked for decades as a truck driver, a profession that was a true vocation for him, he said. "I never had an accident, and I was driving those 55-foot-long trailers," he said.

His wife used to accompany him on long hauls, and he especially loved driving through the mountain states of Colorado, Montana and Wyoming.

Terry has a pacemaker and a bad back that causes him to stoop when he walks, but overall he's in OK health, Terry said. He just got his driver's license renewed, but typically only drives to the grocery store, he said.

He cooks simple meals like pork chops, drinks a small glass of wine alongside a big glass of water each day and is hooked on reality TV shows such as "Big Brother."

As for the secret to longevity, it's about having a positive attitude and a sense of humor, Terry said. "I was always happy," he said. "That's just how I've always been."