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Montgomery Man Celebrates
his 100th Birthday in Style
by Russell Ledbetter
 

HOUSTON — Surrounded by family and friends — five generations of the Lammers family who had journeyed far and wide to celebrate his 100th birthday — Del Lammers, a farmer, rancher, inventor, mechanical engineer, career executive, World War II veteran, and all-around renaissance man celebrated becoming Montgomery County’s newest centenarian with a birthday luncheon at his favorite steakhouse on Saturday.


Staff photo by Jason Fochtman
Del Lammers, of Montgomery, celebrates his 100th birthday with family and friends on Saturday at his favorite steakhouse, the Palm Restaurant in Houston. Lammers, a World War II veteran, inventor, mechanical engineer, and career executive with the Caterpillar Tractor Co. in Peoria, Ill., was greeted by more than 200 family and friends during a birthday luncheon celebrated in his honor.

Lammers has eaten at one location or another of the Palm Restaurant since 1950 — in excess of 360 times, his son, Kevin Lammers, said.

More than 200 well-wishers crowded the remodeled dining room inside the Palm on Westheimer Rd., traveling from as far as Australia, Maine, Lammers’ native Nebraska, his long-time career home as an executive with Caterpillar Tractors in Peoria, Ill., and from in and around Texas to fete the nearly 20-year resident of April Sound with one of his favorite meals: a New York Strip Steak, creamed spinach and mashed potatoes.

“It’s been a real goal to get him to 100,” Lammers’ son-in-law Mike Olson said.

Lammers, who lost his wife of 67 years, Polly, in 2009, makes a point of exercising his arms, legs and back six days a week, he said, also engaging in 20 minutes of cardio on his stationary Exercycle every morning, and again every afternoon. He credits his longevity with always working and staying busy, most days still found tinkering in his garage workshop, where he’s invented dozens of patented tools and mechanical parts over decades that are still in use in the Caterpillar Tractors Co. tool catalog.

Delmar Richard Lammers was born in Litchfield, Neb. to Emma and John Frank (“J. F.”) Lammers, the third son of five boys and three girls on Jan. 4, 1914.

He began school at 6 in a one-room schoolhouse before his father moved the family to a farm outside of town, where Del went to work baling hay and driving a tractor at age 10. The love of tinkering with all things mechanical would be a theme throughout his life.

In his early 20s he traveled to Oakland on a family visit where his Uncle Jack offered him a night job driving a Caterpillar tractor for 30 cents an hour. Unknowingly, Lammers would dedicate the rest of his career to working with Caterpillar tractors and farming equipment in some capacity throughout the world — only interrupted by his service in World War II — including stops in Australia, Japan, and throughout the Far East (where Lammers served as managing director), based out of Caterpillar’s home base in Peoria, Ill., where he traveled throughout the world as a Caterpillar Tractor Co. executive before retiring in 1979.

He met Pauline Marriner, a recent nursing graduate, in Sacramento, Dec. 4, 1941, and the couple married on New Year’s Eve in 1942.

Daughter, Karen, was born in 1949, and a son, Kevin, in 1959.


Staff photo by Jason Fochtman

Del Lammers, left, shakes hands with his son, Kevin, following a toast made in his honor during a celebration of his 100th birthday on Saturday at the Palm Restaurant in Houston

Lammers, who served as an engineering maintenance officer at a Jacksonville, Fla. Naval Air Base, performed aircraft maintenance — specializing in P.B.Y.’s, “a sort of twin-engine, flying boat that specialized in hunting submarines,” his son, Kevin said. Polly also served during the war, working as a nurse on the air base. Del had earned a mechanical engineering degree from Sacramento College in 1942.

Following the war, Lammers took a position with Caterpillar Tractors Co. in Peoria in 1946. His career with Caterpillar would take Lammers and his family throughout the world.

In 1960 the Lammers relocated to Australia (where they would live for five years), and they also spent a year in Tokyo.

Former President George H. W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush had to send their regrets on Saturday. The Lammers and the Bushes became friends in the early 1970s when the Del and his wife would enjoy dinners and social engagements during the Lammers’ trips to China on behalf of Caterpillar.

“His biggest contribution with Caterpillar was probably saving the joint operating venture (Caterpillar) had with Mitsubishi,” former Caterpillar associate Don Coonan said.

Lammers punctuated his life with firsts, enjoying a ride across the Golden Gate Bridge on the first day of its operation in May 1937; taking a seat on the first Qantas 707 flight from San Francisco to Australia; and riding with the likes of Muhammad Ali and an assortment of U.S. Senators on the maiden voyage of the Concorde across the Atlantic from New York to Europe.

“The best thing of all, if you have good doctors — listen to them,” Lammers said after blowing out his 100th birthday cake. “This is one of the happiest days of my life — getting to see all the children — and I hope that you all have the chance to live to the ripe old age of 100 like I do.”


Staff photo by Jason Fochtman
Del Lammers reads a birthday card as photos of his family and military service are shown on a TV during the celebration of his 100th birthday at the Palm Restaurant in Houston on Saturday. Lammers, an April Sound resident for nearly 20 years, was feted by more than 200 family and friends.

Lammers’ doctor, Dr. Valentina Ugolini, who engaged in a bit of friendly repartee with her oldest patient, sitting with him during dessert at the head table on Saturday, said the key to Lammers’ long-term health is the same advice she gives all of her patients, only Lammers actually listens, Ugolini said: Exercise regularly, stay well-connected with other people, give to others — Lammers is a giving personality, she said, and maintain a positive attitude.

“I’m hard of hearing, and I’m hard of seeing,” Lammers said, “But if that’s the worst it can be, I can live with it.”

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Page Modified: 18 October 2016