Sacramento man, 103, might be oldest active Rotary Club member in United States
It was time for Bob Cole to address the 100 or so people at a recent luncheon for the Rotary Club of Sacramento.
The club, a volunteer service organization, was honoring Cole, who is a 103-year-old World War II and Korean War veteran who joined Rotary in 1951. Fellow member John Wood said Cole was “the oldest active Rotarian in the United States” and that he might be the fifth-oldest worldwide.
Cole hadn’t come to sit quietly and bask in praise, though. He spoke for more than four minutes to address the luncheon, giving anyone listening a glimpse of his service, humility and remarkable vitality.
“We’re all optimists,” Cole said. “We have to be. But the opportunities, I think, are just wonderful in the world today.”
Cole’s background
Cole was born in Portland, Oregon, on July 11, 1922. He moved to Fresno in early childhood.
As a boy, Cole saw Civil War veterans in a military parade, Wood said during the luncheon. Cole also spent time in the Monterey area, with Wood saying Cole had known famed author John Steinbeck, who taught him ocean fishing. Cole also got to know Steinbeck’s friend Ed Ricketts, the inspiration for the character of Doc in Steinbeck’s 1945 novel “Cannery Row.”
Times weren’t easy when Cole was a young boy. The morning after he was honored by the Rotary Club, Cole discussed his life, including his memories of the Great Depression, during an interview with The Sacramento Bee at a senior home in Land Park.
Cole got his first job at age 12, folding canvas in a factory for $1 an hour, he remembered. His father made him start paying room and board of maybe $1 a week, Cole added.
Cole was a student at Stanford University when Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. He remembers hearing the announcement of the war while he was at a restaurant for lunch.
“The President of the United States came on and said we were at war,” Cole said. “He said we were bombed by the Japanese.”
He was a member of the Reserve Officers Training Corps at the school, participating in horse cavalry. Cole studied at Stanford for two years before heading to U.S. Marine Corps boot camp in 1944, according to his engagement announcement.
He wed the former Billie Thomas in Washington, D.C., in early 1945.
“We were married in the Washington Cathedral, and that’s a magnificent church,” Cole said. “I remember the minister, he let me come in with my new bride-to-be and we walked down the aisle. And when I was done, I asked the minister what I could pay him. He said, ‘No charge.’”
Cole and his wife would be married for 69 years until her death in 2014. Asked what he was proud of in life, Cole replied, “Marrying one of the prettiest girls in the world.”
He did not see combat in World War II. Cole was in Guam, awaiting the potential invasion of Japan, when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, ending the war in the Pacific. He was then sent to China with a rifle platoon.
Cole would be called back for service as an instructor during the Korean War, primarily at Parris Island in South Carolina.
At Stanford, Cole had studied political science, thinking he would go to law school. By the time his World War II-related service had concluded, things had changed.
“I had a wife and a baby and I had to go to work,” Cole said.
How Cole got involved in Rotary
There are around 1.2 million Rotary Club members worldwide. The organization can offer a good reflection of its surroundings, according to Kerry Wood, president of the Rotary Club of Sacramento.
“Community service clubs like the Rotary Club of Sacramento and others around the region are really telltale for, I think, the kind of heart that a community has,” she said.
Cole's father had been a Rotarian when Cole was growing up. Cole also joined for practical considerations.
“I was a salesman in my company first,” said Cole, who travelled around the state for work. “It helped me get to know people out of town and that was good. It helped my business.”
Other things have kept him involved over the years.
“The principles of Rotary are all good,” Cole said. “Their principles are very high. By that, they like to see a town where the education is good, the business atmosphere is good and that’s what Rotary stands for.”
Cole eventually became a partner in Goodwin-Cole, which manufactures awnings and coverings.
The company Cole helped run for decades is still in existence, near Power Inn Road in Sacramento. He only stopped working about six years ago according to his son Dan Cole, who now runs the business.
Stephanie Graff, a Rotary International spokesperson, said the organization couldn’t verify if Cole was America’s oldest-active Rotarian. Graff added via email that “it seems likely that Mr. Cole is among our oldest members and his tenure in Rotary is certainly an achievement that would inspire would-be and existing members.”
Dan Cole, who is also a Rotarian, said his father had paid attention to his sleep, exercise, spirituality, socialization and diet. He noted that his father never ate hors d’oeuvres.
“Most of us know what to do, and we don’t necessarily do it,” Dan Cole said. “He does it.”
