Beach Kiwani volunteer turns 97 at work
The Fort Myers Beach Kiwanis recently honored one of their hard-working volunteers and board members for longevity. His longevity, that is.
Fort Myers resident Marty Rowe turned 97 years old Friday. While fellow Kiwanians rolled out a cake for their elder statesman, he did what he usually does on his birthday – work.
Rowe said he’s been working on his birthday for as long as he can remember. He arrives at the Beach Kiwanis Thrift Store at 11050 Summerlin Square Dr. just like everybody else. He drives his own car, walks through the front door without the use of a walker or cane and runs the counter without assistance.
Rowe has been a member of the Kiwanis for 27 years -first with the Lehigh Kiwanis, where he lived when he moved down from the Cleveland area, and the past 15 years with the Beach Kiwanis. He has served as president for both clubs.
Rowe is among more than 50 members of the Kiwanis Club of Fort Myers Beach, an organization that has donated more than $1.5 million to the community and counting. Volunteer work and thrift shop sales have contributed to help hundreds of deserving students receive college scholarships as well as many other groups (such as the Beach Elementary School, Children’s Hospital, Bay Oaks, Make a Wish, WGCU Radio Reading, Vacation Bible Schools at Chapel By The Sea and Beach Baptist Church, after school and summer programs, God’s Table and Salvation Army) through grants and assistance.
When asked how he felt to have reached another year, Rowe first looked defensive before answering, “I’m fine. I don’t have any pains.”
You would think that reaching such an age pinnacle would require certain health treatments. Not so.
“I don’t take any medicine. If I have a headache, I’ll take an aspirin once in a while,” he said nonchalantly. “I get through life by keeping my mouth shut.”
Rowe not only donates his time at least two days a week at the Kiwanis Thrift Shop, he has been very involved at the Araba Shrine Temple in Fort Myers for 28 years. He is the transportation director for roughly 400 children, five vans and 45 drivers that take emergency burn case youngsters and crippled children to the Tampa Shriners Hospital. In fact, he has logged in more than 100,000 miles driving children himself.
No stranger to work, Rowe had a newspaper route until he graduated from high school in 1932. From there, he went to work for the US Steel Corporation.
“There was a ship’s captain that lived next door. He worked for United States Steel Corporation on the Great Lakes. I asked him if he needed a deck hand and stayed there for 45 years,” said Rowe. He captained the same ore boat for 28 years.
Although he is 97, the Beach Kiwanis volunteer still needs another year of life to surpass his father’s age when he passed away.
“My father was one of seven boys and one girl. Six of the boys and his sister lived into their 90s. My dad was 98 when he died, and my mother was 89. I just lost a sister two years ago that was 13 months younger than me. I think it’s an inherited thing,” said Rowe, who mentioned he lost his wife 25 years ago.
Before cutting his birthday cake, Marty said he graduated from Lakewood (Ohio) High School with a famous skipper.
“He and I were at the ore dock in Superior, Wisc. He was on one side and I was on the other. I told him I had 45 years in, and I thought I owed it to my wife to retire the next year,” said Rowe. “He said, ‘That’s great Marty, but I’ve had some financial problems, so I need a couple of more years before I retire.’ He later went down with the ship.”
That man was Captain Ernest M. McSorley. He was the skipper of an historic American Great Lakes freighter that made headlines after sinking in a Lake Superior storm on Nov. 10, 1975, with the loss of its entire crew. Many may know the boat Capt. McSorley skippered by Gordon Lightfoot’s 1976 hit song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”