Walter Breuning, world's oldest man at age 114, dies in Montana

Walter Breuning died of natural causes at the Great Falls Hospital.
The world's oldest man, a 114-year-old retired railroad worker from Montana, died Thursday.

Walter Breuning died of natural causes at the Great Falls Hospital. He was admitted there this month for an undisclosed illness after living at a nursing home since 1980.

"I am deeply saddened by the loss of my dear friend and a great Montanan," Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer said in a statement. "He was wise even beyond his years."

Plain-speaking and gregarious, Breuning openly dispensed his simple secrets to a long life: embrace change, eat two meals a day, work as long as you can, help others and accept death.

"We're going to die," Breuning told The Associated Press in an interview last October. "Some people are scared of dying. Never be afraid to die. Because you're born to die."

Breuning was the second-oldest person in the world behind Georgia native Besse Cooper, who was born 26 days earlier.

The oldest living man is now believed to be Jiroemon Kimura, of Japan, who is set to turn 114 on April 19.

Breuning was born on Sept. 21, 1896, in Melrose, Minn. Much of his early life was spent in South Dakota, where he and his poverty-stricken parents lived without electricity or running water.

A bath required young Breuning's mother to fetch water from the well outside and heat it on the coal-burning stove, The AP reported

In 1913, Breuning landed a job with the Great Northern Railway.

He moved back to Montana five years later to clerk for the railway and married a telegraph operator named Agnes Twokey.

Twokey died in 1957 after 35 years of marriage. The couple didn't have any children.

After retiring from the railway in 1963 at age 67, Breuning kept working. He became the manager and secretary for the local chapter of the Masonic group the Shriners, a position he held until he was 99.

In recent years, Breuning became a sought-after sage, appearing on "News Hour with Jim Lehrer" in 2009 and participating in a question-and-answer piece in Men's Journal magazine.

"He was one of the kindest gentlemen and one of the humblest," said Stacia Kirby, a spokeswoman at the Rainbow Senior Living retirement home.