Sometimes it takes a few years to get it right. For Alfred Meiske, it took 105 years. Meiske, a Taylor native, celebrated his 105th birthday Feb. 6 at SPJST Assisted Living.
At 105 years old, Meiske stays true to the path of health and wellness. Almost every morning he has a 10 to 15 minute stretch and exercise session before coffee.
“Don’t give up,” Meiske said. “If you ever give up and are just sitting around, you are going to get old, or I say old. You’re going to get stiffer. Your bones are not going to hold your legs. Your muscles are not going to work right.”
Meiske attributes his health to two things— hard work and faith.
“Well, I have to blame hard work,” he said. “All my life I did hard work. Farming was hard but I loved it and I think maybe that’s what kept me going. Just keep going…That’s my belief, and two, the good Lord takes care of you,” Meiske said.
Meiske was born Feb. 6, 1918 in Taylor. He lived in Beyersville, Circleville, briefly in Round Rock with his wife, Doris Schroeder, and later in life he had a farm in Waterloo, a short distance from Granger Lake.
“That’s the reason I went fishing every day,” Meiske said.
By trade, Meiske worked as a farmer. By hobby, he spent time between Taylor and Round Rock, fishing at Granger Lake and hunting in surrounding areas, Mayor Brandt Rydell read in a proclamation from the city.
When he was 18, Meiske and his father had a farming-related conundrum in Circleville.
At the time, his father had been a sharecropper but lost his lease.
His father found a new one in Round Rock.
The problem was getting there without automatic transportation.
“We did not have trailers. Did not have trucks. We still had mules,” Meiske recalled. Meiske remembers his father asking how they were going to get their four mules to Round Rock.
“And I said, ‘Daddy!
We got that wagon out there. I’m going to put two in the front to pull the wagon, and two in the back…I’m going to drive it with mules to Round Rock!’” In 1936, Highway 29 was a gravel road.
Meiske traveled on county roads to Round Rock.
“I left at daylight and got there at dark,” Meiske said.
When he was 100 years old, Meiske moved into SPJST after his house caught on fire, said Jalyn Morris, his granddaughter. He lived in the facility, but continued driving until 102 or 103 years old, Morris said.
At 101, Meiske said he managed six raised garden beds north of Taylor in a little business venture with Louis Hughes, CFP of Dovetail Wealth Management.
“I took care of that garden. I had six of those beds. Onions, spinach, radish—I raised enough radish for everyone in here.
That’s squash. That’s my tomaters. That’s purple hulled peas,” he said as he scrolled through photos on his phone.
“We made enough purple hulled peas to feed the people here,” Meiske said.
Now, Meiske stays active with daily exercises and a game commonly known in SPJST as Bean Bag Baseball.
It’s a cornhole game with letters instead of holes. The goal is to throw a bean bag onto the Home Run circle, covering the color of the letter completely, to score a point.
“Not many people his age can even get out of bed,” said Mary Bryan, his 95-year-old friend.
At age 105, Meiske stands up from his wheelchair and scores home runs.
