Bill Glennon is quick.
A suggestion to visit the Wall of Honor at the Prairie Path senior living community in Lombard sends the Navy veteran dashing toward the elevator, slowed by neither his walker nor his age, which is 101.
As the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, centenarian Glennon seems less willing to reflect on a long life well-lived than he is to express surprise that he’s still around.
Asked what advice he might offer younger folks aspiring to a similar milestone, the longtime Western Springs resident muses, “To tell you the truth, I don’t know – I’m amazed I’m here. The good Lord has let me stay so long and I enjoy myself all the time.”
It’d be hard to argue that Glennon, a Maywood native, hasn’t earned the right to enjoy himself. His long and fulfilling life could have easily ended early in the going, in the frigid waters of the North Pacific Ocean.
Glennon was just 17 on Dec. 7, 1941, when Japan attacked U.S. armed forces stationed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The next day, “a buddy and me went downtown and joined the Navy,” he recalls. “We wanted the Air Force, but they weren’t taking anyone that day.”
Inducted into the Navy Air Corps, Glennon was trained as a gunner and assigned to a machine gun turret atop a PV-1 Ventura, shooting down enemy aircraft as his plane dropped bombs on Japanese targets. Taking off on missions every three days became routine – and it was routine for nearly a year.
Then one day, enemy fire took Glennon’s plane down, plunging him and six comrades into the remote ocean waters off the coast of Alaska.
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“A lot was going through my mind,” says Glennon, by then 18 years old. First and foremost: “Was I going to live?”
The last one out of the plane, Glennon quickly deployed his floatation device while helping five of his men on board and watching as another attempted to swim for safety. Fortunately for all of them, some fishermen – who spotted the plane’s lights and heard the shot that Glennon fired to get their attention – came to their rescue.
“One of our guys was just floating, unconscious,” Glennon recalls. “They picked him up. We worried they couldn’t come out as far as (the rest of us) were. But they turned around and they took us up to their village. They saved our lives.”
The seven men spent four days being cared for by Alaskan villagers before “the Navy picked us up” and took them to a Seattle hospital for several days of recovery.
When Glennon was well enough for active duty, “they sent me to the South Pacific,” assigned to an island base as a gunnery school instructor.
When the war ended, Glennon was discharged and returned home to Maywood and his fiancée, Virginia. “She was waiting for me,” he says. “She set up the wedding, had it all planned.”
Married within a week of his homecoming, Glennon soon embarked on his career as a teacher and, later, principal at Butler Junior High School in Oak Brook. But while he taught and inspired hundreds of students over his many years as an educator, Glennon kept his war experiences to himself.
Defending democracy “was just something we had to do,” he says.
The Glennons’ 75 years of marriage brought them three children, seven grandchildren and a growing number of great-grandchildren. “There are more coming,” he adds.
The Glennons lived for years in Western Springs, and after he retired, Glennon and his wife took up golf. Eventually, they moved from the family home to Prairie Path (formerly Lexington Square) in Lombard, where they remained side by side until Virginia’s death nearly five years ago.
“Love is the best thing there is. I was just so lucky,” Glennon says. “It was a wonderful life.”
Despite this loss, Glennon is far from alone, surrounded by lots of friends and a caring staff at Prairie Path, where he stays as active as possible. A typical day starts with breakfast around 8 a.m. And then?
“You do whatever you want. For me, it’s going for a walk outside, in the fresh air,” says Glennon, who gave up driving just three years ago. “I do that every day.”
Even with a walker, he’s pretty fast on his feet. In addition to his outdoor strolls, he gets in daily workouts in the center’s exercise room. With plenty of activities like music and fitness, “I join most of them,” Glennon says.
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And because he can, Glennon enjoys a Manhattan with his lunch every day.
Meanwhile, with the family all living in the Chicago area, everyone gets to see grandpa often. “They bring all the kids here to my place,” Glennon says. And every Sunday, daughter Adriene, “a really good cook,” he says, and her husband Joel pick up Bill for dinner at their house.
Leading into the July Fourth weekend, Glennon reflected on his past as he stood before the Wall of Honor in the basement at Prairie Path, his photo as a fresh-faced Navy volunteer displayed among the other center residents who have served their country, along with the insignia of their branches of the armed forces.
But Glennon, who will turn 102 in October, is reluctant to share his thoughts on how the world has changed during his lifetime. “I’ve tried to stay out of politics,” he says. “My life has been good – I’ve been fortunate. Things were really easier back then … now, I’m just glad to be here.”
Jim Dudlicek is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.