Jack Weber, 100-Year-Old Westhampton Resident, Is Subject of Forthcoming Documentary 'Lessons From 100'

The first thing Jack Weber will do when he meets you is give you a hug.

He’s a hugger, he explains, as he pulls you in, and just as you’re trying to process how someone who is 100 years old can walk around without any assistance, not even a cane, and also have such a vivacious sparkle in his eyes, you’re also left to wonder how someone who has been alive for a century can have such a strong and powerful embrace.

There isn’t one easy answer, of course, but in a new documentary filmed by his grandson, Matthew Floyd, and produced by his daughter, Matthew’s mother, Barbara Weber-Floyd, he attempts to answer those questions.

“Lessons From 100” is a documentary short film on Weber’s life and features him in conversation with his grandson as they explore his life, how much the world has changed over the last 100 years, and what has led to his incredible longevity.

Along with the conversations, the documentary includes footage from 100th birthday celebrations, as well as home movies, still photographs, and visits to important places and events from both Weber’s past and daily life.

Weber, a Westhampton resident, has not simply just “made it” to 100 years old. He still drives his car (locally only), and plays nine holes of golf every week, at nearby Indian Island in Riverhead. He does not walk with the assistance of a cane or walker, and is, as the saying goes, sharp as a tack. On May 6 of this year, the day after his 100th birthday, he paid a visit to his newest great-grandchild — the 13th — a grandson, named Jackson, after him. They are exactly 100 years and one day apart in age. A picture of him holding Jackson is framed in the office in his home, alongside many other family photos from over the decades, and displays of awards he has received for serving on the international board of the Lions Club.

He has served with the Lions Club for more than 70 years, and became the president of the Riverhead Lions Club last year, shortly before turning 100, serving a one-year term in that role that recently ended this summer.

Perhaps Weber’s most impressive skill is his storytelling ability. His stories, and the way he tells them, are instantly captivating. His cadence, the way he hits all the right dramatic notes and marks, and his delivery of the punchline or dramatic payoff is spot on, no matter the emotional stakes of the tale.

He laughs heartily, and slaps his hand on the outdoor patio table for emphasis when recounting a tale about his wife’s determination to improve her golf game. She had played with a group of female friends one day, and had needed to borrow a club from a friend to make it over a water hazard. Her shot landed right on the green. When she came home, she immediately told Jack to get in the car, without explaining why until they were already moving. She was determined to go directly to the golf store and buy that same club.

He delivers the punchline flawlessly, and with glee. But he is somber and reflective when speaking about the unexpected death of his older brother, his only sibling, when he was in his early 20s. He describes Harold, 18 months his senior, as “a big, strong, husky guy,” while he, in stark contrast, was “a skinny little kid.” No one ever picked a fight with Jack, he said, because they knew they’d have to answer to his older brother. Harold fought in World War II and survived the Battle of the Bulge, although he lost part of his hand in the fighting. He returned after the war and enrolled in college in Oklahoma, to study agriculture and fulfill his dream of becoming a farmer. While he was out in Oklahoma, Harold was killed in a car accident, at the age of 23. Weber and his parents received news of Harold’s death on Weber’s birthday.

“That was heartbreak for me, and for my parents as well,” he said, the pain still evident in his eyes more than 75 years later. “They were crushed.”

Weber dropped out of dental school to stay home for a year and take care of his parents. He eventually went back to dental school and finished.

You don’t make it to 100 years without becoming familiar with loss. But Weber did not let those losses define him, and that’s been a key “lesson from 100.”

“It’s about the importance of resilience,” his daughter, Barbara, said while sitting next to her father out on the back patio of their Westhampton home earlier this week. “He’s had his tragedies and losses. The downside of longevity is how many people you have to say goodbye to. But his outlook on life and his sense of resilience, seeing the glass half full, is such a crucial part of this, and I want people to hear that.”

He enjoyed 57 years of marriage and raised five children with his wife, Betty, before she died after a long battle with cancer 20 years ago, and also cared for his mother when she was dying of cancer. He has had to say goodbye to many close friends, including from a group he refers to as GOFF — the Gang of Five Friends — made of five married couples. He is now the “last man standing” from that original group.

Weber found love and companionship again after grieving the loss of his wife of nearly 60 years, getting together with another member of that group, Pearl Glassman, whose husband died a month before Betty Weber, also of cancer. A year after their spouses died, Weber and Glassman moved in together and stayed together for 15 years, although they never married. (Glassman now resides in an assisted living facility).

Much like he had with his wife, Weber traveled around the country and even around the world for Lions Club functions with Glassman. He tells another poignant story about one trip with her to Hawaii, when he realized she had not been invited to a social function with the other spouses on the trip because the Lions Club by-laws had stated that only spouses of members could participate in those functions and outings. That experience inspired him to advocate for changing the Lions Club constitution, which removed the word “spouse” and exchanged it with “companion.”

It was important to Weber, he said, because it not only affected him personally, but also made the Lions Club more inclusive for any couples, gay or straight, who may not have been married. He also advocated early on for the Lions Club to allow women to become members, because it was a men’s only club when he first joined. He spoke about those experiences.

“If I see something that’s good, I’ll work hard to keep that thing, whatever it might be,” he said. “But if I see something that’s wrong, I’m going to work equally as hard to change it. And these things were wrong.”

Many of these stories and experiences are shared in Weber’s 350-page memoir, “Jack Weber, Here!” which he self-published last year. His daughter, Weber-Floyd, said that while much of what is discussed in the book is taken up again in the documentary, they also get into other topics that were intentionally left out of the book.

“We stayed away from politics in the book,” Weber-Floyd explained, pointing out that proceeds from sales of the book go to the Lions Club, which is a proudly nonpartisan organization. “The Lions are nonpartisan, but he’s very politically active.”

Weber-Floyd said that listening to her father speak about how the attack on Pearl Harbor inspired him to join the Navy, and how he’s more scared for the country now than he was after the Pearl Harbor attacks, was one of the most moving parts of the footage they recorded for the documentary. He is a longtime Democratic Party donor, and Weber-Floyd said they will likely film additional footage on the night of the presidential election.

Weber’s grandson, Matthew Floyd, said filming the documentary and working on producing it with his mother was a wonderful experience.

Both he and his mother said that they went into the process expecting that the biggest standout moments of the documentary would be footage from the two big events planned for Weber’s 100th birthday — a celebration at his old golf club, Indian Hills, in Westchester County, and a celebration honoring him at the Lions Club convention in Binghamton. And while footage from those events will feature prominently in the film, they agreed it was the smaller, more private, everyday moments and conversations that give the film its heart.

“As time went on, we realized that what is the most poignant and fascinating was seeing him in the wild, seeing him go for a walk through town, down to Shock Ice Cream, and the joy between him and the owner,” Floyd said. “And we shot him playing golf, and he picks up his own clubs, prepares his own equipment; he doesn’t even need a caddie.”

Floyd said his grandfather’s pure love of life, sense of humor, and sense of adventure, curiosity and engagement with the project of creating the documentary itself really shine through in the smaller moments, conversations around the dinner table or out on the patio enjoying a cocktail with friends.

“He completely embraced the process wholeheartedly,” Floyd said. “You can see that in the footage and in his storytelling in the interviews. I think those are the things that make you sit back and say, wow, he’s 100 and he’s still doing all this stuff and still thinking about all this poignant stuff.”

Weber-Floyd joked that after the memoir and the documentary film, the next move might be Broadway, perhaps with “Jack Weber, Here!: The Musical.”

“Matthew said, ‘Grandpa can’t do eight shows a week, but maybe one show a week,’” Weber-Floyd said with a laugh.

It’s a joke, but after meeting Weber, it feels like something else he could probably pull off.

Weber still has a lot to give and share, and he expresses that freely.

“I don’t feel that turning 100 is the end of the line, by any stretch of the imagination,” he said earlier this week. “I’m healthy, I have no ailments, my lungs are good. One doctor said, ‘I wish my heart was as good as yours.’

“Maybe I’m kidding myself,” he continued. “But I think I still have a lot of good years in front of me.”

For more information about “Lessons From 100,” visit lessonsfrom100.com.