103 and still driving: Meet Federal Way’s Henry Lazzar

After 103 years of living, Henry “Hank” Lazzar said he hasn’t been especially health conscious. He loves sweets, and he worked hard, but when it comes down to it, he thinks some people just live longer.

Lazzar was born on Oct. 12, 1921, making him 103 years old, and at his ripe age, he continues to do things many seniors can’t. Lazzar frequently drives from his home, where he lives by himself in Federal Way, to visit his daughter in Orting and his other daughter in Fife. On top of that, Lazzar drives himself to the Multi-Service Center three times a week to volunteer at the food bank.

Apart from those activities, Lazzar said he doesn’t do much, but he’s content with life. He watches TV, takes frequent naps, and goes out to eat with friends from the Multi-Service Center once a week.

The home he grew up in was where the SeaTac airport runway now lies, and when he lived there, the airport didn’t exist. Lazzar said the area was much more rural back then, and the only road was Des Moines Memorial Drive, which he knew as Des Moines Highway.

Lazzar said there weren’t many buses back then, so he would walk a mile to and from school every day. He said it was what everybody did back then.

He went to Sunnydale Elementary in Burien, which is still around, but it’s no longer in regular use. Lazzar said he remembered that after school, for fun, he and his friends would sit near the road and play a game where they would name the car that passed by. He said a car only passed by about every 10 minutes.

He would mow neighbors’ lawns to earn some money, so if he had any money, Lazzar said he would go to the grocery store, buy a soda and then head back to keep watching the cars. He said back then, a soda was about five cents, and a gallon of gas was about eight cents.

Because it was the Great Depression, his family didn’t have much money, so he didn’t have any toys or even a bicycle. He said his dad had a job as a cook at the Rainier Club, so they lived OK, but times were still tough.

He went on to attend Highline High School, which held all the grades, 6th through 12th. Lazzar said he played some sports, but his experience was pretty plain.

He remembered listening to the radio every night because there were no TVs. The first one he saw was after he’d been discharged at the end of World War II.

“Actually, we didn’t know until at the end, but they were getting ready to get [us] going to Japan. So we were part of that initial force that was going to go,” Lazzar said.

It was while he was in the military, when he took leave to visit back home, and on a bus back to base, he met his wife. He said he thought his soon-to-be wife, Virginia, was very pretty, so he went up to her, said hi, they started to write mail back and forth, and then they got married. They had four kids together.

He and Virginia Lazzar were married for 69 years before she died in 2000 during a surgery. He said he still misses her and never dated after her death.

“She’s buried in Boulevard Park, which is close to the airport, and the girls and I go up fairly often and put flowers on our grave,” Lazzar said. “That’s where I’m going when it’s over. I paid enough for the two of us.”

For a career, Lazzar delivered milk for 40 years. Lazzar said that might be why he’s lived so long — because he stayed active delivering milk. He said that after 40 years, when he stopped delivering milk, he drove for Boeing for about five years before he retired.

For perspective, Lazzar was about 18 years old when World War II started, age 48 when the first moon landing occurred, and he retired in the mid-1980s. Lazzar said he hasn’t done anything special to live long and he’s just going to keep going.

Lazzar said the keys to life are to not work too hard, but do work, have good friends, do something meritorious if that’s what one would like to do, but don’t try to conquer the world. Lazzar said before he dies, he’d like to take a boat up the Columbia River and go hit some golf balls at the range.

“You know, why do some go at 45 and others go at 90 and then me? There’s no set time,” Lazzar said. “When you’re born, you’re issued a big roll of tickets, and each day you tear a ticket off and you don’t know how many tickets are on that roll til one day there’s no more tickets. And, it’s different for everyone.”

Lazzar said he’s never really asked himself what the meaning of life is, but he sometimes thinks about why people were made in the first place. He said he doesn’t have an answer, and he just hopes that when he does die, it’s peacefully after he’s taken a nap.