“Century Club: 100-year-old loves ice cream, trains and Big Ben”


From Kevin Kirkland at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette today:

100George Lunn once shook the hand of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But if you gave him a choice, he’d rather have a bowl of ice cream.

Mr. Lunn, who turned 100 on Sept. 17, sometimes eats ice cream three times a day. He traces his love back to the 1940s, when he ran the Maple Dell restaurant in Moon with his wife, Gladys. Burgers were 5 cents, soft-serve ice cream cones were a dime and milkshakes were 15 cents. They also had an ice cream cart at the bottom of Stoops Ferry Hill, also in Moon.

Mr. Lunn was born in Allegheny County Hospital on Sept. 17, 1917, the youngest of Frank and Dorothy Lunn’s five children. He graduated in 1935 from Coraopolis High School, where he lettered in football all four years.

After graduation, he worked at the Standard Steel Spring Co., making car bumpers for 35 cents an hour. He got a raise to 50 cents an hour when he became a foreman.

In 1939 he married Gladys Ebert and they had two boys: George Jr. of El Cajon, Calif., and David of Greer, S.C., with whom he lives.

In 1942, Mr. Lunn joined his father working for the Pennsylvania & Lake Erie Railroad. He enlisted in the Army but was released from his obligation because he was needed at the railroad. President Roosevelt visited a railroad station during the war and shook his hand. He retired in 1972 after 30 years of service.

A member of Simpsonville United Methodist Church, Mr. Lunn likes to watch birds and loves trains, cats, the Pirates and the Steelers, especially Ben Roethlisberger. He works out at the YMCA twice a week and was pleased to see his picture and birthday on a Smucker’s jelly jar.


Mr. Lunn was a member of the Coraopolis Volunteer Fire Department from the late 1930s to the mid-’50s.

In 1969, his wife passed away after 30 years of marriage. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer and moved to South Carolina, where he met and married his second wife, Ruth, in 1975. He was recently honored as the longest survivor of prostate cancer in America at 48 years.

Mr. Lunn has five grandchildren and nine great-grandchilden, many of whom joined him for a party on his birthday. He danced the foxtrot to Benny Goodman music.


You can read more here.