Walter Breuning Passed Away On Thursday At The Age Of 114

I found out about Walter Breuning's passing just before I went to a concert on Thursday night. Although Walter was already a Super-Centenarian, it seemed as if he would be around for many more years to come since he was doing so well. He was on no medication, he got around on his own with no trouble and still granted interviews and visits at his home in Great Falls, Montana. Walter Breuning had the distinction of being the last living American male born in the 1800s and the last male born during the Presidential Administration of Grover Cleveland. One of the lesser-known facts about Walter was that he did sign up to fight in World War I in 1916, but he was not called to duty.

Some of you will recall I posted about Walter back in 2009. One month prior to that I received an autograph from him through the mail. Here is the link:
http://michaeltheresearcher.blogspot.com/2009/09/worlds-oldest-man-walter-breuning-turns.html

Since Walter allowed people to meet him, I was trying to schedule a visit. I looked at flights to Montana as recently as last month, but I could never work it out. It would have no doubt been an amazing experience.

This link features a brief interview with Walter when he was 110 (a link with additional videos can be found below the screen):
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/multimedia/Breuning/index.html

Many more videos of Walter can be found on youtube and there are many articles about him on the web.

Walter's passing means there are only three living people left who were born in the year 1896: Besse Cooper of the United States, Chiyono Hasegawa of Japan and Venere Pizzinato of Italy. His passing also means there is only one living male left who was born in the nineteenth century: Jiroemon Kimura of Japan (coincidentally today is Jiroemon's birthday).