Apartment complex honors 109-year-old resident

FORTVILLE — Mary Weir sat on a pillow, her pink sweater cinched with a striped belt.

The pillow softened her sun-dappled spot on a bench located just steps from her apartment in Fortville, where the 109-year-old resident was honored with the engraved bench for being the complex’s longest resident.

Weir moved into the senior apartment complex in April 1981 after retiring from a 23-year career in the cafeteria of Ingalls Elementary School, said her daughter, Peggy Hunt.

[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]

Click here to purchase photos from this gallery

Village Apartments COO Mary Compton was the property manager when Weir moved in, the first resident to claim an apartment in the complex, Compton remembered.

Weir was grateful for the concrete patio and bench dedicated to her. She thanked owner Mike Surak for the honor.

“You’ve had a lot of good years here,” he said. “It seems like you’ve enjoyed it.”

Weir, who was celebrated last year for being one of the state’s oldest active voters, spends her days enjoying the garden alongside her apartment and playing word games on her iPad, her family members said.

Her favorite game, aside from crossword puzzles, is “Are You Smarter than a Fifth-Grader?” Her family and friends reckon she is.

Paige Hunt, her granddaughter, said Weir’s favorite part of the day is breakfast and her morning cup of coffee.

The woman, who attends St. Thomas Catholic Church in Fortville, has seen a lot change in her lifetime.

She was born in Franklin County, Indiana in 1909 and moved to Fortville with her husband, Lawrence “Pop” Weir, when he opened up a body shop, she said.

In the year of her birth, the United States flag had 46 stars. The NAACP and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway were both created in 1909. And the U.S. Navy founded a base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Weir was 11 when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, giving women in the United States the right to vote. The first year she was old enough to vote, however, she couldn’t — she was in labor with her son, David Weir, now 81, who joined her during the ceremony honoring her on Tuesday. Weir and her husband, who died in 1963, had four children; Weir now boasts nine grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren, nine great-great grandchildren and two more on the way.

Lori Martin, Village Apartments regional manager, said she’s gotten to know the centenarian through the social functions held at the complex, from birthday parties to bingo games. Martin manages 88 United States Department of Housing and Urban Development units in the Fortville area, she said.

Residents must be either disabled or at least 62 years old to move into one of these complexes, she said. Weir was 72 when she retired and moved into the complex, she said.

Weir attributed her longevity to “good health, hard work and plain food.”

“I never drank or smoked,” she said. “I didn’t have the money for cigarettes.”