OMRO, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – An Omro World War II veteran reached a milestone Thursday. Ervin Fay celebrated his 100th birthday.
Hundreds of people from all over the country helped make his day just a little bit more special.
“Who grows to be 100, when you think about it?” Fay said. “When you get there you think, ‘Whoa! How did I make it?’”
When Ervin Fay woke up Thursday morning, even he was a little bit surprised.
“I went downstairs, he’s sitting in his chair, and he’s just smiling! And he said, ‘I made it!’” Fay’s daughter Mary Schuessler said.
And the surprises were just beginning for this 100-year-old Air Force veteran. You see, aside from watching Wheel of Fortune and enjoying old cars, Fay loves something many of us don’t really look forward to – opening mail.
“My dad looks forward to the mail everyday – ‘Did the mail come? Did I get any mail? Is there anything for me?’” Schuessler said. “If you get mail, what does that say? That you’re important, you know, and he likes to read mail because it’s all about him! It’s all about my father.”
“It keeps your life going wide open, too,” Fay said. “You don’t sad off someplace; those things sharpen your day up.”
But what can you get for a 100-year-old man who seemingly has it all and does it all?
Alice, Ervin’s wife of 75 years knew just the thing.
“I said, ‘I’d like to have him get like a hundred birthday cards,’ and I think he did!”
With the help of the Omro Area Community Center, Alice asked for a mail call, in hopes of surprising her husband with birthday cards from the community – at least one for every year he’s been alive. In just a week, several cards started arriving from all over and didn’t stop.
The World War II Air Force veteran was presented with some of those cards at a surprise birthday party thrown in his honor.
And now, for the 100-year-old man who still has all his wits about him, he’s toasting to another hundred.
“Start over tonight at midnight,” said Fay. “I just wonder if that would ever happen. You never know!”
Fay can be seen riding around in his golf cart most days and attributes staying active, as well as his time in the military, to making it to the big 100.
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