“If I had come to Shelby a well man, I probably would be dead; but I came as a sick man, and I am still living.” Such is the philosophy of Mr. T.W. Ebeltoft, who celebrated his 78th birthday Thursday.
Which means in effect that he has had to take care of himself, and he has done it so well that today he is as vigorous intellectually as the average man 20 to 25 years his junior.
He gives credit for his vigor and intellectual integrity to the simple life. Charles Wagner, the Frenchman who wrote “The Simple Life,” and came over here and visited the White House during the Roosevelt regime, had noting on Mr. Ebeltoft. This Shelby scholar never goes to the movies, never gets in an automobile, refuses the innovation of the electric light (reading by oil lamps exclusively) and for years has not been beyond the boundaries of the town.
Of the movies he says: “I have never learned to look at them, hence I don’t like them. Besides I have some visualizing power, and so I get the same pleasure from reading a good book.”
Of the automobile he says: “A trip in an automobile leaves me an unpleasant reaction.”
Of worry he says: “I learned long ago that it is folly to worry, and I never indulge in it. I try to fulfill the Biblical injunction—take no anxious thought for the morrow. When I close my doors the day’s business is as dead for me as Hector.”
Of diet he says: “I attribute much of my good health to correct eating. I eat very simply. Today for example, I have not been hungry and I have eaten virtually nothing I have learned to control my appetite.”
He is a Sam Johnson, landed here in Shelby, and his book store might be a coffee house of old, where those interested in the intellectual life foregather. You can get a discussion, and a learned one, on most any subject at most any time in the Ebeltoft shop.
Of the bookseller, people say: Will Roberts—“this is the only place I come into, am insulted, yet come again.”
Carl Webb: This is a literary cafeteria. I select my mental food, put on a tray, and pay at the desk.”
Dr. Mitchell: “There is only one Ebeltoft; let us give thanks.”
Dr. Royster: “I come in here and get in an argument; I am going to stay away.”
The Star hopes Mr. Ebeltoft’s life will be enriched by many more birthdays.
Editor's Note: T.W. Ebeltoft's 78 and he's still running his bookstore. There was no Social Security or retirement plans in 1926.
From the front page of The Cleveland Star, July 23, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn97064509/1926-07-23/ed-1/seq-1/
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