BLUNT, Helen

BLUNT, MUSSER

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 11/30/2013 at 03:50:40

Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
by John Skipper

Turning 105? It's just luck, Mason City woman says

Mason City resident, Helen Blunt, will be 105 year old on Thursday, Jan. 12.

MASON CITY — Helen Blunt set the agenda the moment her guest arrived at her home.
Blunt, who will be 105 years old on Thursday said, “I’ve got some things I want to get off my chest — so I’ll speak my piece and then you can interrogate me.”

Blunt doesn’t see or hear too well and she motioned her guest to sit close to her.

It wasn’t long before it was obvious that her mind, her memory and her wit are still razor sharp.

She was born in Des Moines in 1907. The family moved to Charles City in 1919 and she lived there for the next 50 years.

“My most exhilarating job was as a reporter for the Charles City Press from 1932 to 1942,” she said. “It was a time of the Depression, of enforcing Prohibition and the start of World War II.”

She said her job entailed writing about births, marriages and obituaries and then hitting the streets to find out what was going on in the city.

“Every morning I went up and down Main Street getting the ‘locals’ — you know, ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith did this or that’ and the people loved it. They called me ‘Annie News.’ I was proud of that,” said Blunt.

“I did a lot of walking back then. Maybe that was a good foundation for longevity.”

She remembers one story in particular that got a lot of play at the time.

“I interviewed one of the last Civil War veterans in the county,” she said. “What I remember about him was that he was horribly old.” >{? One of the people she worked with in Charles City was Elwin Musser, who later was a longtime photographer for the Globe Gazette.

Recently she was honored as the oldest member of the Cerro Gordo County chapter of the AARP and Musser was one of the presenters.

Blunt said it was a thrill to be reunited with him almost 70 years after they worked together.

She is also the oldest member of the class of 1928 from Buena Vista College, where she was editor of the student newspaper.

In 1940, she married Arthur Blunt in New Hampton. He died in 1998 at the age of 94. They had one daughter, Karen, with whom Helen lives.

Blunt is an avid reader but now must rely on audio books.

“I’ve read James Patterson, John Grisham but I’m kind of getting my fill of Nora Roberts,” she said.

Blunt said one of the significant events in her lifetime was the “emancipation of women — a great movement,” she said.

“When I was born, women couldn’t vote. Now they’re running for president.”

She could offer no tips to achieving a long life.

“I’m just puzzled by that,” said Blunt. “I think it’s just pure luck.”

“You know, people want to be 100, and then when you get there, what is there? It’s all downhill,” she said.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, November of 2013

Cerro Gordo Biographies maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
WebBBS 4.33 Genealogy Modification Package by WebJourneymen