World Traveler Celebrates 104th Birthday This Month


When Louise Swannie made the decision to give up her condo in Orland Park and become a resident of Peace Village retirement community at the age of “a young 82”, her daughter Linda was concerned that Louise was indeed too young. Swannie, however, says, “I could see the disadvantages that were to come, the risks of living by myself - and I wanted to still have a home where my children could come.” Instead of her lifestyle shrinking when she moved to The Village, Swannie says, “A whole new world opened up.

That’s a big statement from someone who has actually traveled the world - and has seen every significant event of the last century. Swannie has now been a Peace Village resident for 22 years and will celebrate her 104th birthday on March 31.

“I’m grateful for every day, although once you get past 100, things start to cause problems,” Swannie smiles.

Swannie was born in 1915 and raised on the southwest side of Chicago. She attended Altgeld Elementary School and then Calumet High School. She remembers Prohibition, speakeasys, and code words to gain entrance. “I remember when the (stock market) Crash happened, and the Herald Examiner printed headlines every day of men jumping from the high buildings.” During the Depression, her family and another family, a bachelor friend and an orphaned cousin moved into together. Everyone worked together to help the unemployed among them, and the men were often in other parts of the country for work opportunities while the women stayed in Chicago.

“We were all expected to get jobs as soon as we graduated from high school. When my sister, cousin and I went looking, we came home and told my dad that nobody was hiring. He told us, “Nonsense. There is a job out there waiting for you. Go and find it.” So we went back out and got hired at Woolworths on Michigan Avenue,” says Swannie.

It was while working the luncheonette counter, where a plate lunch was 15¢ and the addition of soup and a slice of pie raised the price a dime, that Swannie watched the world go by, quite literally, during the World’s Fair in 1933. “We had window seats as the parades went down Michigan Avenue. All the hotels were filled, and we saw all the different countries go by. We even saw Sally Rand, the fan dancer,” says Swannie.

After meeting her husband Harry on May 5, 1930, they were married in 1938. Swannie was a long distance operator at that time, connecting people around the country and the world. “I loved that job,” Swannie says. “We were actually real live people doing the connections.” Daughter Linda was born in 1942 and son Paul in 1945.

Harry was exempted from serving in the Second World War because of his job making parts for airplanes. Swannie remembers rations on everything from soap to sugar, and not being able to use the automobile except for carpooling to work. “Word would go around the neighbors that a store was going to get supplies. Everyone would stand in line for hours to get one bar of soap, or box of laundry detergent. We took it all in stride. We saved whatever sugar and butter we had to make cookies to send to our boys overseas. I sent my nephew cookies during that time and to this day, he talks about getting Aunt Louise’s cookies and how delicious they were.”

Harry joined the Civilian Conservation Corps and was stationed in Oregon, driving a supply truck while working on the construction of Grant’s Pass. Swannie says, “He loved it out there so much, we often vacationed there in our later years.”

In those later years, Swannie and her husband traveled around the country and around the world, including Norway, London, and most frequently, Scotland. Harry passed away in 1985 and two years later, Swannie made the move to Peace Village.

She immediately embraced this new world. Swannie joined the Friendly Neighbor group, was on the Resident Council, helped to create the Birthday Club, enjoyed participating in “The Young and the Rest of Us” annual shows and worked on the Library Committee. “I’ve read every book in our library,” Swannie says. She lives in an independent apartment at Peace Village, enjoying a dining room meal each day while still cooking for herself as she pleases.

Even at 104, Swannie hasn’t stopped expanding her world. At her children’s urging, she is writing her memoirs, stories about the trips she and Harry made, and fictional stories set in the eras she’s experienced, including Prohibition.

Swannie says she is very fortunate to have lived through the twentieth century, to see the technology and advancements developed in this last century. The advancements in senior communities deeply resonates with her; she credits moving to Peace Village as an important factor in her long, healthy life.

Swannie says, “I’ve seen incredible improvements in medicine and the study of health. I think about my mom and how we just couldn’t handle her health issues as she got older. I wish there had been senior communities like Peace Village when my mom was still here. I think we would have had her for a lot longer.”