Appendix Article 5 longest-lived member of the Hall -     Overstreet family ….. family line: Hall     William (1)     Hezekiah (2)     Abner (3)     Jas. W. (4)     Jas. N. (5)     Carlyle (6) Ever Young: He lived 100 years! Carlyle Hall 1875 - 1975 He violated the rules of longevity! He was big, standing over six feet; most of his life he carried plenty of weight. He chewed tobacco - crumpled cigars - until the sisters at the retirement home talked him out of the habit. He didn't live by the book but he had a century of life. (One hundred years, eight months.) Up until his final days, he was still working on his first million, thinking of ways to make things that someone would want to buy. Among the last of his experiments was a gadget made in his room from a shirt box, a pair of magnifying lenses and hooks to hold it like spectacles. A version of a long darkened tube, it was to help his dimming eyes read the newspaper. Actually, it worked - as it caused the Iris to expand, admitting more light to the eyes. He had used unknowingly a scientific principle that was solid. Each morning before getting up, he went through his exercises which included tugging his ears, kicking up his heels, flopping his arms, tugging his hair and pulling his ear lobes. They were circulation builders. Far and wide he disseminated this receipe for living longer, published a pamphlet about it, and received nation-wide publicity through a syndicated columnist. Life was interesting even it its ninetieth decade. He was to finish life with a road name for him, a string of small, practical inventions and a world of memories. He went from the family farm to selling agricultural implements (at the State Fair he hitched himself to a cultivator to show how easily it pulled); + then in the cream separator business and from that to management of creameries. The trail led from rural central Illinois to the west coast. When time slowed him down a bit, he took up writing letters to the newspapers, stating his opinions and arguments. This caused strangers to look him up to see what kind of an oldster he was. He championed the causes of the elderly from the Townsend Plan on and was one of the first on Social Security. Mentally, he never admitted an 'ache or pain' and asserted his rights among his fellows at the nursing home with his cane. If the meat was tough he would whet the table knives together to sharpen them. He drank his prune juice regularly. As death neared, he could hear ethereal voices speaking through space to him of the wonders that were yet to come. +he was the oldest man to attend the Ill. State Fair for a number of his final years