PHOTO/ MATT DAYHOFF/JOURNAL STAR
Keith, left, and Ken Stevig pose at the Apostolic Christian Restmor nursing home in Morton. The twin brothers are turning 100 years old. The pair were born in Pulaski, Iowa, but moved to central Illinois to work for Caterpillar Inc.
MORTON — Twin brothers Ken and Keith Stevig sat with their backs to the warming fire in the greeting room of the Apostolic Christian Restmor home this week. Shoulder-to-shoulder — Keith seated in a chair, Ken in a wheelchair — they spun abridged stories summoned from the memories of their long lives.
The family farmstead in Iowa. Buggy rides to church. World War II combat. Hitchhiking to a new life in central Illinois. Steady, successful, unspectacular careers at Caterpillar Inc. Family.
On Friday, March 6, 2015, Ken and Keith Stevig turn 100 years old.
100.
Who gets to spend 100 years with a person they love?
“I was thinking about that one day and I was wondering — I look back on time and I came up with one word: short,” Keith said. “People would think 100 years is a long time. Short, it really was. It just all came together real quick. It was short. It just seemed like from an early age and through my extended life, life was short. Even at 100.”
In 1915, Woodrow Wilson was in the first of his two terms as president of the United States. “The Birth of a Nation,” the first 12-reel film in America, opened in Los Angeles. Babe Ruth, a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, hit his first major league home run. The Ford Motor Co., under the leadership of Henry Ford, manufactured its 1 millionth Model T automobile. Jacob and Mary Ann Stevig gave the names Keith and Kenneth to their newborn fraternal twins.
The boys grew up on the farm outside Pulaski, Iowa, a tiny farm town in the southeast corner of the state. Their memories of the time involve farm chores, walking a mile to attend their 23-student grade school, chasing rabbits and Sunday morning buggy rides to church.
“It was just second nature to go to church, you didn’t ask questions about it, we just had to go all the time,” Keith said. “We lived on a farm eight miles from our church. Dad had a buggy, a two-seated buggy, and we’d get in that buggy and go to church. On the way to church we would see some friends and they’d be sitting out on the porch and they’d wave and I was embarrassed because we didn’t have a car. We had to ride in a two-seated buggy to church and there wasn’t any question about it. On Sunday we would go to church.”
Keith went to high school and college. Ken went to war.
“I was in the service. I was drafted, trained for almost a year, sent overseas to Germany and was in a combat unit,” Ken said. “ Of course the war was (winding down). We had the Germans on the run. When I walked out of the service permanently I promised myself that I would forget everything that happened, and that’s the worst thing I ever did. I’d like to remember. I was so glad to be free so I just forgot all of this.”
Ken does remember that he took a sniper’s bullet at close range, an injury that earned him the Purple Heart. The medal rests in a glass display case on the wall outside his room at Restmor. A sign reads: “Kenneth Stevig was awarded Purple Heart for bravery in Germany in World War II.” Visitors walk past the medal of bravery every time they enter his room.
“The bullet must have been pretty close range because the first thing I felt was heat. That bullet was HOT,” Ken recalled. “I was very fortunate that I had first aid there. I was the first one in the room right out in the field, a field hospital right out in the field. They got me on that table, put the old needle to me and they had me out in a minute or two.”
He was sent to England to recuperate, then: “Right back to the front line, right back where I came from,” he said.
After the war, Ken moved to Morton to live with relatives and take a job at Caterpillar. Keith soon followed. He hitchhiked to central Illinois carrying all his belongings in a single small suitcase.
Lives eventually settled into comfortable routines and stretched toward unseen horizons, and are stretching still. Keith and Alice Stevig have been married for 56 years, and are the parents of Larry Stevig, who lives in Morton, works at State Farm in Bloomington and has a family, including grandchildren of his own. His parents recently moved from the family home to an independent living town home across the parking lot from Restmor.
Ken never married. He moved into Restmor about six years ago.
“Until about six months ago, Keith would visit Ken every day,” Alice said. “They’d talk and he’d help (Ken) with meals. They were close their whole lives.”
The twins are in good health. Ken has more mobility issues than does Keith, but despite some hearing loss, both men are conversational, clear-eyed and quick to smile.
“There have been a few medical issues,” Larry said. “But for the most part, they’re pretty good.”
The two brothers agreed that over the course of 100 years there had been few instances of discord in their relationship.
“We didn’t fuss, we got along real good,” Keith said. “There were probably some (fights).”
He turned his head toward his brother.
“I don’t know, did we wrestle?” he asked.
“What?” Ken asked, loudly.
“Did we wrestle? I guess we did, didn’t we?” he said.
“Wrestle?”
“Yeah, wrestle.”
“If we did,” Ken said, then paused. “Very little.”
Scott Hilyard can be reached at 686-3244 and shilyard@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @scotthilyard.
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