The veteran was assisted in a wheelchair to the patio by staff at the Edward C. Allworth Veterans’ Home in Lebanon. He was greeted by loved ones holding handwritten signs, balloons, a double-layered chocolate cake, and a chorus of congratulatory cheers. Lapschies wore a mask and a “WWII veteran” baseball cap, while attendees stood 6 feet apart.
Lapschies, who lived through the 1918 Spanish flu and the Great Depression, was isolated in his room after developing a high temperature and labored breathing and was cared for by trained staffers. Lapschies’s daughter, Carolee Brown, admitted that the family had discussed the possibility that her father would not make it with his doctors.
Despite being very sick, the tenacious veteran pulled through. Lapschies himself joked that the virus “just went away.”
His family believes he might be one of the oldest people to recover from the virus so far.
Lapschies’s family, including his daughter Carolee and granddaughter Jamie Yutzie, pulled out all the stops—as far as they were able—on the occasion of their family patriarch’s 104th birthday. According to Carolee, it was a far cry from her father’s 101st birthday, which hosted over 200 attendees.
Jamie praised her grandfather’s “absolutely contagious” smile, lamenting that it had to be covered by a surgical mask. The family acknowledged the excellent care that Bill had received at his residential facility.
“It seemed like he just made this wonderful recovery,” Carolee reflected. “We were, like, shocked that he was kind of sitting in his wheelchair waving at us through the window [...].We hope that this will inspire some of the other people that are going through this.”
On his 104th birthday, Lapschies did much more than wave from his bedroom window. He breathed fresh air into his lungs and enjoyed the company of a small army of devoted family members, overjoyed and inspired by his amazing recovery.
The family now looks forward to his 105th birthday.
