Wanda Boush turns 102 next May
By Gregg Wendorf
Advance News Journal
At 101 years young, Wanda Boush is a walking, talking history book, with no signs of slowing down. In fact, this Monday, she was getting ready to drive over to a local restaurant from her Alamo home to have lunch with a friend, one of the former presidents of UTRGV, back when it was the Pan American University.
“I just went and had my driver’s license renewed this past May,” she says matter- of-factly. “I tell people the year I was born, 1922, and they tell me, I must have the date wrong. Like, I don’t know what I’m talking about?”
Oh, to be her at the century mark. In fact, in the U.S., these days, the chances of making it to 100 could be better. Known as “centenarians,” less than 1 percent of the population is so blessed.
Age, however, isn’t the only component to longevity. Think of those living in a nursing home or an assisted living facility, needing help with daily functions. That’s not Wanda. For her, quality of life means so much. She’s still independent, and she’s still enjoying life.
“When I went to renew my driver’s license, they acted surprised because I guess they don’t see many 101-year-old drivers.”
No doubt. She has her limits, though, on the road. “I wouldn’t drive very far now, but heavens, I think that it was maybe 10 years ago or so, I was going up to a town outside Dallas, and I caught myself on I-35 going 104 miles an hour, and I slowed down to 92, I think. But I don’t drive fast like that anymore.” At least she wasn’t texting behind the wheel.
“I only have my phone here at home.” She is, however, computer literate. When asked for some photos to accompany this profile piece, she asked for this newspaper’s email address, saying she could scan in some photos and send them via email, which she did, within the hour.
Her Life’s Journey
Born in Ohio, Wanda, as she likes to be called, graduated high school in 1940, spent her working career with Western Electric in a Chicago suburb, and then when she and her husband retired in 1977, they traveled the world before relocating to South Texas.
“My parents came here in 1955. In fact, I still have a photo of my dad that’s dated 1955, standing next to a big heap of onions.”
“We went everywhere. I’ve been to Burma, Borneo, Morocco, Australia, and Colombia. I’ve been in a lot of places. Part of that was with my husband, and part of it was with a group called Friendship Force, which was organized in 1974 by Jimmy Carter.”
Wanda’s husband died in 1997, the year she turned 75, but she kept going, visiting places, staying in touch with old friends and making new ones along the way.
“Last week, I spoke to probably the only other person who is retired from Hinsdale Township High School, class of 1940.”
Meaning, next year will mark 84 years since she got her high school diploma.
“She and I are probably the only ones that are living from that class of 1940.”
Little doubt, Wanda. “You know, I had someone here, this might’ve been about eight years ago, washing my mobile home, and they said, ‘You were born before the Second World War?’ They just couldn’t believe that anyone could ever be that old.”
Asked if she has any secrets to her longevity, Wanda Boush credits, mainly, good genes. Her mother was still taking cruises late in life until she fell down on a trip to Jamaica, broke her hip, went to a nursing home and caught pneumonia. Her grandpa was about 97 when he passed away.
“Anyway, I attribute it to my ancestors,” she says in that voice of hers that sounds 20 or 30 younger than her real age, 101.
Even the COVID pandemic had little effect on her.
“I don’t think that I was that much affected by it. I did notice that at first there was not much traffic on the road, but as it progressed, why it just went back to the same regular routine that everyone else had. So it really didn’t affect me.”
At the height of COVID, she would have been 99.
These days, Wanda says she drives better than she walks.
“I drive better than I walk, let me put it that way.”
Perhaps more importantly, she’s still active in the community, a supporter of several local museums, the local symphony.
For her 100th birthday a year ago, some county, university dignitaries were going to throw her a birthday bash to honor the occasion, with some fancy culinary fare on hand.
“It was going to be at the McAllen Country Club, but I told the girl that contacted me, I said, ‘I’d rather have tacos from Dairy Queen.’
“So on the sixth floor of a local bank building, why, we had tacos, and I don’t know, we had maybe 30 people up there, and we all had tacos from Dairy Queen.”
Life’s Major Problems
For her, the minor problems of life have never bothered her all that much. Roll with the punches, that sort of thing. She’s more concerned with what she calls “the big problems.”
Like? “I’m scared to death for our country.” She calls herself a Republican, but when asked to name her favorite president, she names FDR.
“I think that Roosevelt did a lot of good. Not Teddy, but FDR. He had a lot of work projects for people. Back in Illinois, they improved the parks, they improved the roads, they did everything. It was a wonderful program.”
People wanted work more than they wanted hand-outs, she says, at least in her neck of the woods, the Midwest.
“They didn’t stand in line for soup kitchens. They didn’t ask for government handouts, free stuff. They worked. You gave them a job in the CCC and they worked, they improved things, they wrote books, and they did all kinds of stuff.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s depression program, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), was a major initiative to address unemployment during the Great Depression.
“That’s what we should do now,” Wanda said. “But too many people won’t do that anymore. They want everything for free. Then, we had the hippies, the yippies, and so on. You can’t tell me that that wasn’t also an influence (as it pertains to modern America).”
Signing off, getting ready to ring in her 102nd birthday next May, have lunch with friends later this week, which she’ll drive to on her own, thank you very much, Wanda Boush says, “I got my own opinions about everything.”