| THE LIFE OF
KARL DREW HARTZELL
This book is about the hands I have been
dealt, and how I have played them for more than
a hundred years. There was nothing I could do
about it. Like most of us, I live in the past,
the present, and the future. Ten years ago, I
had a little fibrillation on the tennis court,
went to a doctor who said, “Cut out the
caffeine.” I did, and switched from tennis to
golf. No further problems, except with the
putter and all the other clubs. The legs were
fine.
The Present
As for now, it is as though I am on top of a
mountain. It has now been climbed. I can look
around. I have arrived. I begin to realize who I
am, and who I must have been. My friends keep
asking me, “How does it feel to be a hundred
years old?” I am continually being reminded that
I am a century plant. I need that reminder,
because I do not feel any differently today than
the way I felt last week or the week before. But
somehow things are subtly different.
My golfing partner carried my bag from the
car out to the cart, even though I could do so
just as well with a little more effort. The
seniors at the clubhouse in Florida voted to
free me from the annual fee for being one of
them. I was given a beautiful little glass
memorial with a golf ball etched on it saying
“Karl, Happy 100th, P.V.G. &C.C.M.G.A.” Because
of my age, the trustees of the Club at Shelter
Island, New York voted to allow me to play
regularly free of the greens fee. Harry, my
Ponte Vedra barber in Florida, learned from the
local paper that I had reached the milestone,
and would not let me pay for a recent haircut.
Not only do my friends ask how it feels to be
a hundred, they want to know what I eat and
drink, and what other secrets I may have for my
longevity. I tell them that I very carefully
selected my grandparents. Others in the dining
room keep turning and looking at me. I ask
myself, “Am I a curiosity.” I suppose I may be.
I am a preacher’s kid, not a child of wealth. A
follower of Jesus, not Mohamed, of John Wesley
not Henry the Eighth. I am white, not yellow,
brown, or black. My families were immigrants in
1640 and cir. 1730, not 1950.
My Ancestors
The Drews and the Hartzells were 17th and
18th century immigrants from England and the
German Upper Rhine area called the Palatinate.
Both families were religious refugees. My
mother’s family, the Drews, left England at the
time of the war between the Catholics and the
Protestants known as Cavaliers and Roundheads,
and landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1640.
The Hartzells, my father’s family, left Germany
after Louis the 14th, King of France, revoked
the Edict of Nantes in 1685. That Edict (1598)
by Henry IV of Navarre, then King of France, had
given toleration to the Protestants in the upper
Rhine area, which was then under France. Without
that protection the Protestants began to leave
Europe. Some, known as the Palatines, went to
Ireland. But the Hartzells went first to
Switzerland, and then around 1730, arrived in
Pennsylvania near Philadelphia. Both families
had left Europe seeking religious freedom and a
better life in America.
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