{"id":204984,"date":"2026-04-17T20:14:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T01:14:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=204984"},"modified":"2026-04-17T20:14:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T01:14:41","slug":"morgan-celebrating-100th-birthday-shares-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/04\/17\/morgan-celebrating-100th-birthday-shares-memories\/","title":{"rendered":"Morgan celebrating 100th birthday, shares memories"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Vancrest of Van Wert resident Joe Morgan is celebrating his 100th birthday. Scott Truxell\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 100 years on this earth, Joe Morgan, a resident of Vancrest of Van Wert, has seen and experienced a lot of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morgan was born April 18, 1926, in a home on Center St. in Van Wert. You could say he arrived in a blaze of glory \u2013 the house in which he was born was on fire as he came into the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUp on the roof \u2013 dad and the doctor went out to look and see what was going on,\u201d Morgan said with a chuckle. \u201cMom was inside by herself, giving birth to little old Joe\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there was some damage, the home wasn\u2019t destroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Friday, family members, Vancrest staff and others gathered on Friday to celebrate Morgan\u2019s milestone with birthday party in his honor at the facility. Before the party, Morgan reflected back on his life and noted his childhood was an average one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI played with the other kids and everything went good,\u201d he explained. \u201cMy parents took good care of me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he was three years old, the Great Depression hit and Morgan said it certainly affected his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt did drastically,\u201d he said. \u201cWe learned to do without and we did without a lot although I praise my mom and dad for feeding and taking care of me and all the food they sacrificed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morgan was a member of the Van Wert High School Class of 1944, and later attended Bowling Green State University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI enjoyed school and the extracurricular activities, sports and stuff like that,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was just a great town to live as a kid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also served in the U.S. Army during World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was classified, I never went into combat,\u201d he explained. \u201cI was on a ship going overseas so I spent some time over in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He excelled at Morse Code and could take 35 words a minute in his prime, when 13 was the standard to get a license.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morgan went on to work for the Central Insurance Company, doing accounting before branching into other work. He noted still meets with former co-workers for breakfast each Friday morning at McDonald\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was an avid bicyclist, enjoyed playing basketball and was a ham radio operator, a hobby he still enjoys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI heard one of postal carriers in Dallas talk about it when I lived down there and when after I got back here, I saw in the paper they had free classes \u2013 that\u2019s for me, anything free \u2013 and so my dad and I went and we got our licenses,\u201d he explained. \u201cIt\u2019s been a hobby and I feel like it\u2019s one of the real clean and nice hobbies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked about what may have contributed to reaching the milestone mark of 100 years, Morgan had a simple answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it was the man upstairs \u2013 the good Lord,\u201d he stated. \u201cHe saw to it that I made it and I\u2019m still here. I tried to eat three meals a day and get eight hours of sleep and I\u2019m still doing it, and I take care of myself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morgan has lived through many historical moments but one he remembers vividly is December 7, 1941 \u2013 the day Pearl Harbor was bombed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were playing and mom yelled out the door \u2018we\u2019re at war\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThat was a big item, believe me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To help put things in perspective, television was in its first days, literally, when Morgan was born. In those early days, television was a far cry from what it is today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBack when television first seemed to show up for me, a friend bought a television and invited me down to see it and this is what the screen looked like,\u201d Morgan said while holding up a blank piece of white paper. \u201cIt was about all snow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As technology improved, Morgan noted he enjoyed comedy shows, including Fibber McGee and Molly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While he never took a great interest in the country\u2019s space program, Morgan marveled at how the U.S. was able to put a man on the moon in 1969.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was fascinating to see what we had been reading about as kids in a comic book,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s almost unbelievable and to see them live land on a dime \u2013 can you believe that? It came right down and they zeroed right down to the inch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morgan was asked if he could go back and give his younger self advice, what would it be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBe natural and human and do a little bit of thinking about somebody beside yourself,\u201d he said. \u201cI like people and I try to help as much as I can but I am not a rich man, so I can\u2019t help financially to a great extent but I\u2019ve helped many people get their car pushed out of a snowbank and things like that and I\u2019m happy doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 100, Morgan said he has no complaints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he \u201cI can\u2019t hardly believe that I feel as good as I do,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cI don\u2019t really have any pain and I enjoy people and my children \u2013 I\u2019m as happy as a bug in a rug.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent editor In 100 years on this earth, Joe Morgan, a resident of Vancrest of Van Wert, has seen and experienced a lot of things. Morgan was born April 18, 1926, in a home on Center St. in Van Wert. You could say he arrived in a blaze of glory \u2013 the house in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-topstory"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 07:10:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204984"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205002,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204984\/revisions\/205002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}