At 103, Ormond World War II veteran Ed Vrona shares secret to a long life

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ORMOND BEACH — On the eve of his 103rd birthday, World War II veteran Ed Vrona will tell you right away that he’s a lucky man.

“Luck — and a positive attitude, maybe that helps,” said Vrona about the secret to his remarkable longevity. “I’ve got a bunch of angels around me. They take care of me.”

On Monday, those friends, neighbors and staff members at the Aberdeen At Ormond mobile home community will celebrate Vrona’s July 4th Independence Day birthday with an 10 a.m. parade of patriotically decorated golf carts through the 533-home community.

It will be followed by a party at the community’s clubhouse.

Vrona’s annual celebrations have become a beloved ritual at Aberdeen since his milestone 100th birthday in 2019 attracted roughly 100 residents for a surprise clubhouse party that featured the Singing Vets quintet from Emory L. Bennett Memorial Veterans Nursing Home, the presentation of a shadow box award honoring his war service and accordion dinner music.

From 2019: 'I've been so lucky': Ormond Beach World War II vet celebrates 100 years

“Ed is a celebrity here,” said Cindy Miller, Aberdeen’s activities director. “Everybody loves Ed Vrona.”

More than a century of stories

Born on July 4, 1919, in Butternut, Wisconsin, Vrona started his life amid a worldwide flu epidemic. Throughout his long life, he also has persevered through the Great Depression, World War II and, most recently, another global health crisis in the COVID-19 pandemic.

As another birthday looms, Vrona remains sharp as a tack, although his hearing and eyesight have faded. He maintains a disciplined daily fitness routine that includes time on a recumbent exercise bike and a variety of stretches for his arms and lower body.

With the assistance of a walker, he regularly treks the 400 steps from his home to the clubhouse, a precise distance calculation that reflects his lifelong interest and skill at mathematics.

As a younger man, that focus became the foundation of Vrona’s service in World War II, where he was a technical sergeant in the U.S. Army Air Corps. During the war, he used his innate mechanical skills to keep Allied planes in the air to battle Japanese forces in New Guinea.

From 2017: Veterans Day 2017: Honoring those who serve

“A lot of guys were out there to shoot a plane to the ground,” he said during a pre-birthday visit with family and friends this past week at the Aberdeen clubhouse. “My area was more putting the planes back in the air.”

In recent years, Aberdeen residents rave about Vrona’s craft skills, reflected in a house adorned with beautiful wooden angels, wooden fish swimming happily on living room walls and an intricate dollhouse that Vrona built based on the designs of former family homes.

Vrona estimates that he has made more than 100 of the angels, carved initially as a tribute to his wife of 68 years, Georgie, who died on Christmas Eve seven years ago. He credits his enduring love for her as another example of the “luck” that has been at the heart of his long life.

In conversation with his visiting daughter and son-in-law, John and Vicki Boquist, this past week, Vrona marveled again at the memory of meeting his future wife amid a sea of 4,000 people on the dance floor of the Paradise Ballroom in Chicago in 1946.

More: World War II vet Ed Vrona marks his 102nd birthday with a July 4th parade in Ormond Beach

“Before that, I don’t ever remember meeting a girl and dancing all night, but I danced with her all night,” he said. “And I never danced with anyone else, the rest of my life.”

Vrona has given away many of his carved angels to friends and family, said Sam Riner, 75, a neighbor who visits him regularly with her two small rescue dogs, Meeshka and Panda Bear.

Often, she and Vrona share stories over one of his favorite meals, a take-out slice of anchovy pizza from Lenny’s in Ormond Beach. Other shared treats include a slice of Vrona’s own Key lime pie, one of the many culinary creations that he still prepares at home.

“He makes a Key lime pie that is to die for,” Riner said.

Riner also praised Vrona’s quick sense of humor, which nowadays often is aimed at the foibles associated with his own advancing years.

“I don’t even buy green bananas anymore,” Vrona said, offering an example. “I don’t know if I’ll be around for them to ripen.”

Most of all, Riner said, Vrona is always a beacon of optimism, the ultimate glass-half-full guy.

“Eddie is very, very positive,” she said. “You’ll hear nothing negative from him.”

Vrona's outlook shaped by war experiences

In response, Vrona smiles and nods his head in agreement.

“Why be negative if you can’t do anything about it anyway?” he said. “I’ve had a wonderful life. Honest.”

For Vrona, the seeds of that positive outlook were planted during one of the most difficult stretches of his life, 21 months spent in the dangerous jungles of New Guinea during World War II.

There, Vrona and other members of the 1536th Materiel Squadron faced plenty of adversity in an environment where temperatures soared to more than 100 degrees and perils included headhunters prowling the wilderness.

Vrona’s memories include nights spent sleeping on Japanese crates and taking a machete to coconuts for food because the unit had been moved into place so quickly in 1943 that supplies weren’t available.

Above, Allied P-38s faced Japanese aircraft in battles that were among the most perilous of the war.

As a member of the maintenance crew, Vrona used his ingenuity to invent a makeshift tool to remove spark plugs that were required to be changed every 100 hours. Before that innovation, plugs would be broken off in the cylinder grounding planes for the hours necessary to replace cylinder heads.

To solve the problem, Vrona improvised a hand-held gadget to insert into the cylinder shaft and break loose the frozen threads.

“It was about the size of my thumb,” he said. “You’d drill three little holes, put it in there and the plug comes right out. I made six of them, so everybody had one down the line.”

Now, he looks back on those challenging days as the ones that ultimately shaped him the most.

“That’s the best thing that could’ve happened to me,” he said of his war experiences. “When you go through that, nothing else bothers you. It brought out the best in me. Everything turned out real good.”

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Ormond World War II vet Ed Vrona to be celebrated on 103rd birthday