Sean C. Morgan
Alfred Finnell celebrated his 100th birthday on Aug. 21.
He can hear a little out of his left ear, and he is blind in one eye, but he’s on only one medication – for cholesterol. His family describes him as “healthy as a horse.”
Alfred proudly shows off a certificate sent by President Obama commemorating his 100th birthday. Finnell’s family gathered at daughter-in-law Joanne Finnell’s house in Sweet Home last weekend to celebrate his birthday. Family members came from Idaho, New Mexico, Washington and Oregon.
The centenarian started out his adult life working in education but eventually spent some 40 years working in sawmills as a saw filer.
He was born in Arkansas on Aug. 21, 1911.
He lived in Arkansas “long enough to be born, I think,” Finnell said.
After graduating from Beaverton High School, he attended Oregon State University, driving school bus in Corvallis. Afterward, he taught two years of high school at Dundee.
He married his wife, Floretta on Dec. 2, 1963. They were married for 65 years. She died 10 years ago. They had three children, including Nina Romero and the late John Finnell and Frank Finnell. He has 10 grandchildren and many great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.
After working in education, Finnell went to Alaska, working at the Ketchikan Spruce Company, and then to other areas, including Longview, Wash.
He went to work at the Powers and Davis Mill in 1945, staying there until it closed on Dec. 23, 1966. In early January of 1967 he went to work at a mill in Washington, staying 10 years.
He retired from a mill in Oroville, Wash., 10 years later at age 75.
“They nearly had to run him off with a shotgun,” Joanne Finnell said.
“My dad did the same work, and he traveled all around the world,” Alfred Finnell said. “He was in Nicaragua and Mexico.”
Finnell has lived in Sweet Home for about five years, moving here to be near his son.
He and his family have two theories about his long life.
“I used to swear it was every day at noon, two or three glasses of (Carlo Rossi burgundy) wine,” Joanne Finnell said, adding that her father-in-law stopped drinking it because he swore it was making him hard of hearing.
“So he went from wine to cookies,” said granddaughter Debbie Keeney.
He loves a meat and potatoes diet, although he doesn’t really eat the potatoes too often, Joanne Finell said.
Alfred Finnell keeps it simple: “I just breathe when I’m supposed to. I don’t smoke. I did when I was young.”
He smoked cigarettes, cigars and pipes, but he quit cold turkey on Halloween in 1951.
“He had a mid-life crisis in his 70s and had to buy that Porsche,” Keeney said.
He drove that until he couldn’t, beginning in 2001.
Now, Finnell enjoys watching baseball, “Jeopardy” and “The Wheel of Fortune,” or “The Wheel” as he calls it.
“He says he’s not smart enough, but enjoys (Jeopardy),” Keeney said. “He used to watch Animal Planet, and he used to call it ‘Animal Nation.’”
He used to enjoy hunting, fishing, boating and camping.
He was a member of the Elks Lodge, and he is a life member of the Masons. He belonged to the Episcopal Church.
Before his wife died, Finnell enjoyed taking trips with her, including their last trip, a month in Italy.
“He was a hard-working person,” Romero said.
“He invested well,” Joanne Finnel said.
“I think he instilled it in us – a little anyway,” Romero said.
In that vein, it bothers him that his granddaughter rents, Keeney said. “You buy everything. Don’t rent. He just can’t believe it and get over it.”