Article Text

Long after midnight, Marvin Hurley often remains awake, following sports scores and the news on his iPad, watching old movies and listening to music. As a song plays, his foot still taps gently to the beat.

At 100, Hurley does not think of himself as stopping. Life has simply become quieter.

He lives alone in a condominium that has been in his family for decades, relying on his own routines and occasional help from neighbors. Many days unfold from the comfort of his favorite chair.

“I watch sports. I follow the news. I listen to music. That keeps me going.”

It is a life the boy he once was in Indianapolis could scarcely have imagined. Eyesight problems made ordinary childhood games difficult and sometimes separated him from other children. He would nevertheless cross oceans, learn several languages, work abroad for the U.S. government and live to meet a great-grandchild.

A lifelong pull toward music

Music first captured Hurley in Indianapolis during the late 1930s, when big bands performed live. A concert he attended with his mother—featuring Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa and the sound of drums—proved decisive.

“That was it for me.”

During the World War II era, Hurley and four college friends set out for California at the beginning of a summer break in an unreliable Model A Ford. Their Route 66 adventure nearly ended when the car broke down only miles into the trip.

Two friends hitchhiked ahead. Hurley and the other two improvised their way west, at one point hopping aboard a steam locomotive. They slept wherever they could find shelter and eventually reached Los Angeles.

Hurley took a job at Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica to support himself, but music remained his central pursuit.

“I would get off work and go listen to the big bands … I was just into the music.”

He remembers that summer, which included being in Los Angeles when Japan’s surrender in World War II was announced, as one of his life’s greatest adventures.

An education that opened the world

After returning to the Midwest, Hurley earned a bachelor’s degree from Butler University and a master’s degree from Indiana University. He served in the U.S. Army, taught Spanish in high school and later oversaw international student admissions at Indiana University.

His life took another turn in Madrid, where he joined a Spanish program for foreign students at the University of Madrid. There, he met Maria Sandiford, a young woman from Rome enrolled in the same program.

They fell in love. Hurley left his coursework for a job because, as he explains, he needed to earn enough money to marry her.

The couple wed in Rome on March 2, 1957, at the Basilica of Saint John at the Latin Gate. Their marriage lasted more than six decades.

Hurley later served with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Peru and Egypt and also spent time in Syria. Those assignments built a life shaped by language, public service and an expanding view of the world.

Learning to reach out

Maria, whom Hurley describes as the more outgoing partner, died in September 2020. Her death left him facing a profound adjustment.

“My wife was always the outgoing one … After she passed, I had to learn to do it myself.”

He began making a greater effort to greet neighbors, thank service workers and speak with people he met during his walks, including garbage collectors he regularly passed. It was another act of adaptation in a life filled with them.

Hurley offers no elaborate formula for reaching 100. He points instead to practical habits: He never smoked, avoided heavy drinking and kept active.

“I always walked a lot. … I never really stopped moving.”

He also remains connected to St. Agnes Catholic Church and attends Sunday Mass.

Hurley and Maria had five children, one of whom died in infancy. He now has eight grandchildren and a great-grandchild born during the same year he turned 100.

After a lifetime of Route 66 travel, wartime Los Angeles, overseas assignments and a marriage spanning generations, Hurley’s present is more contained. Music fills the room, news and sports unfold on his screen, and his foot continues to mark the rhythm.

“I’ve always believed I’m one of the luckiest guys on the face of the earth,” he says, echoing Lou Gehrig. “I’ve been very blessed by the Good Lord.”