CARMICHAEL, CA (MPG) - Carl Holland, a resident of Aegis of Carmichael Assisted Living, will celebrate his 102^nd birthday on October 9.

During his lifetime, Holland said the world has “completely changed.” When he was born, there were no televisions, “automobiles were just beginning to take their place… there were no airports, no passenger airplanes,” and electricity was only available in downtown areas. “There’s an awful lot of changes,” said Holland, “102 years is a long time.”

Holland was born on October 9, 1917, in a little community called Preston Bend in Red River Valley, Texas. He said the town itself is “no longer there, because they covered that with about 40 feet of water when they put the Denison Dam there across the Red River” between Texas and Oklahoma.

Holland recalled his earliest memory of Preston Bend: “I can remember when I was a year old — and I remember the church, and the hay and feed store.”

His family moved from Preston Bend to Denison, Texas, and then moved to Ada, Oklahoma in 1927 when he was 10 years old. The Great Depression hit in 1929; “Nobody had any money. Everybody had problems,” said Holland.

Then his father, a sharecropper and carpenter, abandoned the family. “He left my mother and me and my two brothers — completely left us. And she had no education… so you can see the situation was pretty bad. … I never did have a father really.”

“I didn’t have a father to turn to,” said Holland. “I decided a long time ago that I wasn’t going to allow my children to be in the same situation that me and my two brothers were in when my father left us.”

His mother eventually became a nurse, working 20-hour shifts and leaving the boys on their own. Holland had to learn independence and responsibility at a young age: “I was the oldest of the three boys. I kind of had to look after my two brothers.”

After high school, Holland worked as a carpenter. He married his wife Elwood on January 1, 1938 and started a family. “My proudest moment was probably when Beverly was born. I remember she was born December the 8th, [1938], and Christmas was the 25th. I got a little Christmas tree… and I set it on the table near where Beverly was, course she didn’t know it at the time. That was my proudest moment, giving my own daughter a Christmas tree.”

Beverly, now 80 years old, fondly remembers him singing her to sleep at night when she was a little girl. “He’s an amazing father.”

In 1939, Holland began his career with Proctor & Gamble in Dallas, Texas. World War II had just started, and Holland’s service was deferred because of the nature of his work: “We were producing glycerin that’s used in dynamite. … So, Proctor & Gamble was controlled, really, by the federal government because they needed the glycerin.”

In 1952, Proctor & Gamble transferred Holland as one of the first employees of a new Sacramento location. The family — which now included two sons, Phillip (born in 1940) and Jim (born in 1948) — relocated to the Sacramento region, and then they put down roots in Carmichael two years later.

Throughout his 35-year career at Proctor & Gamble, Holland was a valued employee and held many roles in the company: “It was easy for me to learn things, and Proctor & Gamble knew that. … I’d go to one department that wasn’t making too much profit, they’d put me in there, and I’d work there until I got it back up to where it was supposed to be. And then they’d transfer me to another department.” Holland was working as the company’s employment manager when he retired in 1975.

Holland’s wife passed away in 2000, but he sees all three of his children frequently. Beverly said, “He came from such a poor beginning, and he worked his way up and he was very self-motivated.” Holland expertly managed his finances throughout his life to ensure that he could live comfortably and that his children would never be responsible for taking care of him: “I think that’s something to be admired. I’m very proud of him,” said Beverly.

“There is no secret to longevity. There just isn’t,” said Holland. But he described the “three phases of life” — the first is being born, and the second is the environment where you’re raised. Holland explained that no one has any control over the first two phases. But as an adult, you enter the third phase, and Holland said “that’s the one that’s important, because then you have control over what happens… and you have to be able to assume responsibility for your own actions. If you can do that, then you’ll have it made.”