A WWI veteran celebrates 109 in Spokane, Wash.

Jack Babcock

John Henry Foster "Jack" Babcock, my aunt's father, turned 109 on Thursday, July 23.

His is a remarkable story, so please indulge me as I recount some of it for you.

I was 11 when I first met "Jack" while visiting in Spokane, Wash., with my aunt Sandra Strong, my mother's sister-in-law, and her parents, Jack and Elsie. My parents were missionaries overseas in the Philippines, so meeting family members was a rare and wonderful occasion.

That was in 1961, so Jack was still actively engaged in his electrical contracting business with his two sons.

I listened to his stories then with fascination, just as I did last January when Kim Chamberlain, my mother and I visited with Jack, then 108, and his current wife, Dorothy, 80, over lunch at a restaurant counter and later at their comfortable home on Spokane's northeast side.

Jack, you see, is Canada's oldest surviving World War I veteran, and one of only three surviving World War I veterans in the U.S., Canada and Great Britain.

Born July 23, 1900, on a farm outside Holleford, South Frontenac Township, Ontario Province, Canada, he was one of 13 children left fatherless when his father died in 1906 while cutting down a tree. Jack was just 6, but his still-sharp memory recounts that his father was cutting down one tree when another tree that was leaning against the first fell on his father's shoulder.

Jack's father was carried into the house on a bobsleigh, but only survived two hours from his injuries.

Farming was the key to survival for the Babcock family, so Jack didn't concern himself all that much with book learning. He dropped out of high school shortly after starting, then at age 15, he lied about his age as so many young men did in an attempt to join the Royal Canadian Regiment's Canadian Expeditionary Force being readied to fight in the trenches of Europe during the "war to end all wars." Great Britain had entered World War I on Aug. 4, 1914, and all loyal Canadians wanted to serve the crown.

Jack's true age was quickly discovered, however, and he was sent to work in Halifax where he wrestled military freight onto large army vehicles until he was finally able to join the Young Soldier's Division of the 146th Battalion in August 1917. He took a troop ship across the Atlantic Ocean to Liverpool, England. He was eventually stationed at Bexhill-on-Sea with Canada's 26th Reserve Battalion.

Barely 17 and still too young to be ordered "over the top" of the trenches in Europe, Jack spent the remaining year of the war practicing field drills with 1,300 other young men in England, unlike more than 68,000 fellow Canadians who were killed or died from injuries suffered during World War I.

After returning to Canada in 1919, Jack eventually moved to the United States in the 1920s, served in the U.S. Army from 1921-24 and became an electrician. He moved to Spokane in 1931 and opened a mechanical contracting business.

Jack is an amazing man. He learned to fly a plane and earned his pilot's license at 65. His first wife died when he was 76, and after a respectable period of mourning, he started dating his former wife's nurse, Dorothy, who was 29 years younger. When he finally proposed to Dorothy, she made him promise that he would give her "10 good years."

Never one to renege on a promise, Jack and Dorothy recently celebrated their 32nd anniversary.

An active golfer well into his 90s, Jack decided at age 94 that he would earn his high school diploma, a feat he accomplished in 1996, at age 96. He immediately enrolled at Spokane Community College in a class on Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.

At his most recent birthday celebration, which I enjoyed vicariously via televised videos and news accounts emailed to me, Jack was personally greeted by Canada's Minister of Veterans Affairs Greg Thompson who also hand-delivered personalized birthday wishes from Queen Elizabeth II, Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Canada's Governor General Michaelle Jean.

It was his ninth birthday card from Queen Elizabeth II, but apparently the novelty of such cards never wears off as Jack was heard to quip to television reporters, "She's quite an important lady, you know."

While the other 45 revelers enjoyed a sheet cake emblazoned with "Congratulations Jack Babcock - 109" and frosting balloons and a Canadian maple leaf flag, Jack enjoyed his customary luncheon of long-cut French fries that he dipped constantly in tartar sauce.

Although Jack did not say much during the party, his wife Dorothy stuck up gamely for her man of few words.

"After all, when you have lived 109 years, you've said quite a few words already," she told one newspaper reporter who was attempting an interview.