As i'm stepping into my 60's i am ever-increasingly interested in what others have done "at my age".
I must compile a list!
I knew that Colonel Sanders started his chicken business in his 60's and Laura Ingall's Wilder got published in her 60's. Who else?
I found out that Roget Invented the Thesaurus at Age 73!
My own mom finally quit daycare to do her calling after 50 sometime, maybe 55? Her ministry of going around picking up outdated bread from stores turned into a huge thing! She was even given the government commodities to include in her handout lines! She had to buy several refrigerators to store things in between the give out days.
Ray Kroc bo't out the McDonald's brothers and created the chain we love to hate when he was 59.
Grandma Moses began painting at 76! Still painted when she was 100!
(When googling, i found many seem to consider 40, or even THIRTY, "older"!!!)
Gian Lorenzo Bernini began designing churches at 60.
Author Harry Bernstein was born in Stockport, England in 1910. He wrote 20 novels that were never published BUT, in 2007, at age 97, he wrote an autobiographical novel, The Invisible Wall, which received critical acclaim. The book poignantly described the “invisible wall” that separated the Jewish and Christian sections of his home town. At age 98, he published, The Dream, which told the story of his family’s move to America. Because these two books were so successful, he was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship at age 98 to pursue his writing. At 99, he published the third book in the series, The Golden Willow: The Story of a Lifetime of Love, about his marriage to Ruby and later years. His novels have been translated into several languages. Bernstein stated: “If I had not lived until I was 90, I would not have been able to write this book…It could not have been done, even when I was 10 years younger. I wasn’t ready. God knows what other potentials lurk in other people, if we could only keep them alive well into their 90s.”
Henry Ford invented the assembly line at 60.
George Sheehan ran his fastest Boston marathon ever at 61.
J.R.R. Tolkien published the first volume of his fantasy series, Lord of the Rings.
At 66 Noah Webster completed his American Dictionary of the English Language.
At age 68 William Crookes began investigating radioactivity and invented a device for detecting alpha particles.
Ronald Reagan became the oldest man ever sworn in as President of the United States at 69.
At 70 Judy Brenner, who had recently run the Boston Marathon, chased a teenage shoplifter 100 feet and helped hold him until police arrived! LOL
Bill Horning won first place in his division in the 2004 U.S. Adult National Figure Skating Championships at 71!
At age 72 Margaret Ringenberg flew around the world.
At 73 tightrope walker Karl Wallenda was knocked off balance by a gust of wind and fell to his death while crossing a wire between two hotels.
A Maori woman, Ramari Port, received her PhD in molecular medicine from the University of Auckland when she was 74.
Also at 74 Chuck Yeager reenacted his first breaking of the sound barrier 50 years earlier.
At 85 Jessica Tandy starred in her final film, Camilla.
At 86 Katherine Pelton swam the 200-meter butterfly in 3 minutes, 1.14 seconds, beating the men's world record for the 85-to-89 age group by over 20 seconds.
Also at 86 J.L. Hunter "Red" Rountree, turned to crime at age 86. A bank teller responded to his robbery note by asking, "Are you kidding?" He blamed a Texas bank for his personal bankruptcy. After his final heist at age 91, he became the subject of a short dramatic comedy that played at the Tribeca Film Festival.
At 88 Michelangelo did architectural drawings for the Church of Santa Maria delgi Angeli.
At 90 American composer Elliot Carter wrote his first opera at 90. He published more than 40 works between ages 90 and 100.
Mary Hardison, 101, became the oldest woman to do a tandem paraglide.
At 83, Great grandmother Joyce Patrick learned to read and write. (Finally had the TIME! LOL)
At 84 Rita Roherty hit 91 of 100 clay pigeons to take third place in a rifle competition.
Also at 84 Venus Ramey balanced on her walker and fired her handgun to shoot out an intruder's tires. Ramey, winner of the 1944 Miss America pageant, confronted the man on her Kentucky farm and disabled his vehicle so he couldn't escape.
Barbara McClintock won the Nobel Prize in "Physiology or Medicine" for the discovery of genetic transposition at 81.
Thomas Edison invented the telephone at 84.
It seems there are plenty of marathon runners, authors and actors that keep going late into life. I'm most interested in the NEW "careers" people start after 60.
George Elliot said: “It’s never too late to be what you might have been."
