Want the secret to longevity? Don't worry, be happy, 104-year-old recommends

Grace Keith Barry went to church on a horse and buggy as a child while visiting her grandfather near Marianna, Florida.

Now, she watches First Baptist Church of Pensacola services on the Zoom app on her computer.

Barry, who turned 104 years old on Wednesday, has seen so many changes in her lifetime. Changes in Pensacola where she was born in a house on Strong Street on that fall Saturday in 1919, changes across society, changes across the globe.

She was born on the born just a year after the end of "The Great War," World War I. Born on the brink of the Roaring '20s and a decade before the Depression. By the time the United States entered World War II in 1941, she was a young woman in her early 20s.

So much time has passed. Yet Grace still remembers so much. Even dates, building numbers, phone numbers.

"I remember one time we were coming home, and I was going to call my mother and daddy, and their number was 4774,'' she said. "So I dialed (pay phone, of course) and they said you could no longer dial that number. They had added the 432 to the beginning of the number."

Grace is a rarity, though not as rare as one before. The United Nations estimates that currently there are 573,000 centenarians - people 100 years and older - almost quadruple the estimate of 151,000 made in 2000. Lifespans are increasing each year and the United Nations projects there will be 3.7 million centenarians across the globe in 2050.

The key to living to 104? Must be a life without vices.

"I've had a few vices,'' she said with a chuckle, her two children chuckling as well. "Now, I have high blood pressure - low on the bottom, high on the top and some heart failure, but I feel good."

Her children, Kathy Kenney Rainer and Keith Kenney, marvel at their mother's energy and vibrancy.

"She is still so sharp,'' Rainer said. "She did her own taxes even."

Grace grew up at 1501 E. Brainerd Street, then a dirt road, and played violin as a child. There are even a few old Pensacola Journal clippings from the 1930s that feature young Grace playing violin and participating in recitals at various social events throughout town. She attended local schools, including Agnes McReynolds School in East Hill, now gone, and Pensacola High School, graduating in 1939.

She remembers "dragging the main" in downtown Pensacola - cruising the downtown streets looking at "cute boys" and even visiting the red light district off Zaragosa Street with friends just out of curiousity.

"We were just curious about what was going on down there,'' she said. "We couldn't see anything though - just a bunch of houses."

After graduating high school, she attended the University of Alabama for two years and then returned to Pensacola.

"I went to work at the (Pensacola) Naval Air Station and that's where I met my husband," Grace said. "I worked in the disperser's office in Building 45. It was right on the yacht basin and of course all the planes were flying there all the time. Some of them crashed out there, so it was hard to work sometimes. It was very exciting though."

She would marry George Kenney in 1945. The best man at the ceremony was Aubrey Barry. Aubrey and sweetheart Modeste Merritt were best friends with Grace and George and the two couples would spend a lot of time together. (There are also old newspaper clipping showing Modeste and Grace attending many of the same social events.)

"Modeste was my best friend all through high school," Grace said "We just hit it off."

Modeste and Aubrey would marry and the couples would live their lives. George Kenney's Navy duties brought the family to Berlin, Italy and places across the United States.

"They were in Berlin before the wall went up," Rainer said. "They had so many adventurous times."

George Kenney, who would go on to have a successful career at Barnett Bank in Pensacola, died in 1999. Grace's friend Modeste would die a year later.

"They had both lost their spouses," Rainer said of her mother and Aubrey Barry. "Then it happened."

A while later, Aubrey Barry had a friend (and his wife) coming to town and they were all going out to dinner.

Aubrey asked Grace to be his date for the dinner. You can guess what happened.

In 2002, Grace married the best man from her first marriage ceremony. Her second ceremony took place at First Baptist Church of Pensacola.

"Everyone was so happy," Rainer said. "They had known each other for so long and it just makes me smile even now thinking about it."

Aubrey Barry, a U.S. Army veteran, died in 2004.

Grace lived at home on her own for many years after his death, only moving into Summer Vista Assisted Living in Pensacola a year ago.

She's always been active, but never big into exercise. Her own parents died in their 80s, though she has had some family members live to be close to 100 years old.

Grace's daughter said she believes her mother's attitude has helped extend her life.

"One thing that has contributed is that she has such a good attitude,'' Rainer said. "She's so sweet and people have always gravitated toward her. She's very social and has a lot of friends. She's not a mean, gossipy person and none of her friends are either."

Grace doesn't disagree with the assessment.

"I've always been a pretty happy person," she said. "I've just never worried too much either. I guess I'm just happy."

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola centenarian Grace Barry celebrates 104th birthday