If you ask seniors what the key to a long life is, many will tell you that doing what you love keeps you young and healthy. But what if you don’t discover your passion until later in life? We have compiled a list of seniors who achieved enormous success in their golden years, teaching later generations what following your passion and having so much dedication can create. From athletes to artists, our round up of amazing seniors includes those who have lived life to the fullest and know that success is sweet at any age.
Mixed Martial Arts, commonly known as MMA, involves intense fights which require individuals to push their bodies in hand to hand combat in the Octagon; a training facility. Many fighters are in their early twenties and put themselves through grueling training to prepare for their fights, and are known for their iron chins, impressive stamina, or dominating reaches. One fighter however, is known for his longevity in the sport; Heavyweight Skip Hall fought in his last MMA fight at the age of 63. This former serviceman served in Korea, started in boxing, then trained in jiu-jitsu and tae kwon do before taking on the MMA1.
Fauja Singh began his career in long distance running while in his 80s and ran his first marathon at 89. Singh is now 102 years old and is still running. He ran his fastest marathon at five hours and forty minutes in 2003 at the Toronto Waterfront Marathon when he was 92. He has also set numerous records in his age group for various distances. Today Singh has officially retired; his last official race was the 10 km event before the Hong Kong Marathon in February 2013.2
Breaking his back four times, suffering through eleven broken ribs, a broken knee and a broken ankle all while barefoot waterskiing was all worth it for George Blair. This daredevil not only water skied well into his 90s, but he also skied expeditions in 45 countries. Blair took up waterskiing at age 40, after a spinal fusion surgery left him in a large metal back brace. Blair was staying at a hotel near a water skiing school recuperating and the water skiing trainer asked him if he’d like to give the sport a try. Blair fell in love with the sport and became a famous stunt skier. He also posed for Sports Illustrated for Women in 2002 as one of the sexiest men in sports at 87 years of age.3
Many complain about their metabolism slowing down as they age and exercise just not having the same effect it had in the past. However, some athletes do their best work as they reach their golden years. Ray Moon, for example, is the world’s oldest bodybuilding competitor at age 83. Moon recently competed in the NABBA International Championships in Melbourne, Australia, which is even more impressive when you learn that he’s still competing just two years after battling bladder cancer!4
Retirement is often the perfect time to pick up new hobbies as you don’t have the demands of work vying for your time and attention. Often, those hobbies don’t include pole vaulting or the long jump. But most retirees are not Flo Meiler. Meiler is 79 years old and holds 15 World Records and 12 US records in nearly every track and field event. She was originally a tennis competitor in the Senior Olympics, but chose to try track and field. From her first long jump, she knew this was the sport for her and now she trains five to six days a week and is in the best shape of her life. Meiler holds records in pole vaulting, the 60 meter hurdles, 200 meter hurdles, steeplechase, discus, 4×100 meter relay and the hammer throw.5
It’s a commonly known fact that as we age, our minds are often not as sharp as they once were. For those of us that regularly forget where we left our keys or have trouble typing an eloquent email, Alice Munro is a hero. Munro is a Canadian contemporary fiction writer with a slew of awards and prizes to her name, not the least of which is a Nobel Prize in Literature. Her works include numerous short stories and novels, including, Lives of Girls and Women.6
Laura Ingalls Wilder is most famous for penning the Little House series, some of which was later adapted into a television series. Wilder was born to pioneer parents in 1867 and became a school teacher at only 15 years old. She married a farmer and the towns she lived and worked in throughout her life became the settings for the stories her daughter encouraged her to write. Wilder was 76 years old when she completed the last book in her Little House series.7
Another accomplished and award-winning writer is Alison Lurie, an American Novelist. Lurie writes both fiction and non-fiction, often in children’s literature and occasionally in ghost stories, and won a Pulitzer Prize at 58 for her novel, Foreign Affairs. Lurie also taught writing, literature, and folklore at Cornell.8
British author Richard Adams, most well-known for the modern classic Watership Down won the Carnegie Medal in 1972 and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize in 1973 when he was 52.
One of the best things about growing older is that we tend to have a better idea of what we would like out of life. This is especially true for Emmy winning actress Kathryn Joosten who didn’t begin acting until her 50s. Joosten was a wife, mother and psychiatric nurse in Illinois. After a divorce in 1980, she decided to pursue her dream of acting, by taking acting classes and taking odd jobs to make ends meet. She moved to Hollywood and five months later she had a two-line part in Family Matters which kick started her career. She had various parts in sitcoms throughout the nineties and is most known for portraying the president’s secretary on The West Wing and as Karen McClusky on Desperate Housewives, a role for which she won two Emmy Awards.9
William (Bill) Traylor was born as a slave on a plantation outside of Montgomery, Alabama in the 1850s. After the Civil War, he continued to live and work at the plantation. At the age of 82 when his family and former employers had all moved away, he decided to move to Montgomery. He took up a pencil and started drawing the people, animals and events he saw from his home on Monroe Street. It is estimated that he drew between 1200 and 1500 drawings. Traylor passed away in 1949, a full 33 years before the drawings went on show in the exhibition, Black Folk Art in America at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C.10
Joseph Garlock was a Russian immigrant who lived in the New York area where he was a bus driver, shoe repairman and sold produce from a storefront he owned. It was only after he turned 65 and settled into retirement that he started painting while at his daughter’s cabin in the Catskills. He was inspired by American pop culture and his memories from Russia. While in his 60s, Garlock held his first show at a gallery in New York. After he passed away in 1979, many of his painting were put in storage. It was only after his grandchildren discovered his many paintings that Garlock’s work was displayed throughout the country.11