Mark Bennett: 107-year-old author's advice: Think, laugh, wave at rainbows

Apr. 14—Like most authors, Peggy Cobb is excited about her new children's book "Painter Pan the Rainbow Man," just released last week.

And she's anxious to start on her next book on fabrics, with a friend who works at Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Yet another upcoming milestone for Cobb will be more low-key, though — her birthday late next month.

"There's going to be no big celebration," Cobb said Friday afternoon by phone from Georgia. "We'll be getting together, just as a family."

Cobb will turn 108 years old.

Yes, this lady who was born during Woodrow Wilson's presidency and survived the Spanish Flu pandemic, just published a new book and is preparing for the next one.

Anyone needing motivation to get out of bed every day and accomplish something needs to talk with Peggy Cobb, a former Terre Haute resident.

"Part of my longevity is...I love to share ideas and learn new things," Cobb said.

She lives in Hammond Glen Retirement Community in Sandy Springs, Ga., near Atlanta. Cobb moved there in 2003 to be nearer to her sons. Her husband of 59 years, Jacob Cobb, died in 2002. They'd lived in Terre Haute since 1946, when Jacob became an assistant professor of education at Indiana State Teachers College. He eventually became dean of graduate studies, helping the school develop that program, which helped it grow into Indiana State University. In Terre Haute, Peggy and Jacob raised two sons Bill and Peter and late daughter Katy in the Collett Park neighborhood.

Before coming to Indiana, the couple moved several times when Jacob served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, taking them to places like New Orleans and Nashville, Tenn. That was a change in climate from her birthplace. She was born in 1915 in Lynd, Minnesota, a prairie town of about 200 residents surrounded by streams, lakes and valleys.

Her passion to "share ideas and learn new things" started in the Minnesota town.

Cobb's parents both earned college degrees and raised six children, including Peggy. Her father, Frederick Vanstrom, owned a small bank, but it closed in 1929 as the Great Depression set in. So the family turned to farming. Despite that adversity, her parents saw all six of their kids graduate from college.

Peggy came to Terre Haute with a bachelor's degree in art education, and had taught in Minnesota public schools. Once they arrived in Terre Haute, she taught classes and served as art supervisor at ISU's Laboratory School, and also took night and weekend classes at Indiana State, eventually earning a master's degree in art.

During her Terre Haute years, Peggy created watercolor drawings of a 5-inch-tall, "impish, laughing, loveable little character" who magically slid down a rainbow onto a little girl's window sill to help her fix her attempt at a painting.

The storyline and watercolor images led to her new book, published by River Lane Press and distributed through Amazon online and by order in bookstores. Its idea formed a few years before her arrival in Terre Haute. Cobb had a conversation with her young niece, Susan, then 3 years old, as they looked out the window at a rainbow forming after a Minnesota rain. As her book's introduction explains, they sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "Playmates" (with the lyric "slide down my cellar door"), read a "Superman" comic and recited the poem "Smile."

"Painter Pan the Rainbow Man" was born in Peggy's imagination.

Decades later, it's her new book.

Its context, the arts, has been a lifelong passion. "It just made me more appreciative of life," Cobb said.

She's served in and supported arts and music organizations. Cobb also worked to start a music therapy program at Union Hospital in memory of her daughter, Katy. The girl lived with physical disabilities and died of cancer in 1998, but was soothed by music her brother played for her on a cassette recorder in the hospital.

"She made life so happy for everybody," Cobb said of Katy.

A buoyant spirit, likewise, is one of Peggy's traits. "It's her optimistic outlook, in addition to her curiosity, which is unusual for anyone her age, or even my age," said her son, Bill, who's 74.

Her age is unique, too. "Semi-supercentenarians" — folks ages 105 to 109 years old — occur at a rate of one for every 34,000 people in the general population, according to the "New England Centenarian Study" by the Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine. The study also notes that exceptional longevity runs "very strongly" in families, and that's true for Cobb. Her sisters lived to be 104, a day shy of 100 and 94.

"There does seem to be a genetic element," Bill Cobb said. His mother is mostly confined to a wheelchair these days, after a fall a few years ago, "but she gets around pretty well," Bill said.

Peggy's advice to people hoping for long lives isn't focused on foods, though she has eaten a varied diet with lots of vegetables since childhood. Instead, her tips for good living are more mental.

"My interests are just so wide-ranging," she said. "I'm so excited about this new book about fabrics." It will be her fourth book, following the unpublished "A Bat Named Belinda" (which she wants to publish someday), the "Design and Sign" hands-on art activity book from 2020, and now "Painter Pan."

Obviously, thinking improves health, at least in her case. She encourages people to write down thoughts, too. Cobb still does that, and a few days ago got rewarded for writing her latest book with a "lifetime membership" to the Atlanta Writers Club.

"I don't have to pay any more dues," she said with a laugh.

She intends to keep writing. "I'm curious about anything going on in the world," she said. "I'm going back to my values I've grown up with here — my favorite quotes are 'Furnish your mind well and you will always have a comfortable place to be' and 'Be flexible, and you won't get bent out of shape' and 'Humor, don't leave home without it.'" With her books, "my ulterior motive is to leave a good feeling," she said. "Laughter is good."

Oh, and Peggy Cobb has one more important slice of advice, straight from her new book. It requires a childlike spirit.

"Anytime you see a rainbow, wave," she said, emphatically. "Painter Pan's going to be waving back at you."

Mark Bennett can be reached at 812-231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.