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"That's it!" Wolf said. That, and maybe his genes. His older sister will turn 103 in December, he said.
Throughout the years, politics has been Wolf's passion.
"I was school director for Ephrata Township. I was mayor of Akron. I served on the Akron borough council. I also issued building permits for the Akron borough. Until one day my wife said, 'You give that up or you lose me.' And I was ready to give it up."
Flying was another passion of Wolf's.
"I loved to fly. I would fly anytime," he said. "My son had a pilot's license and he took me a few times."
He remembered seeing his first airplane when he was about 10 years old. "We sat on the farm field across the road so we could see a long way," Wolf said. "An airplane landed in a field between Akron and Ephrata. We watched 'em take off and come down many times. They were giving rides for $5."
Born in Akron on Nov. 16, 1909, Wolf was the son of George and Mabel Zwally Wolf.
Wolf said the doctor who delivered him also had delivered his two older sisters, the late Katherine Wolf Shelly and 102-year-old Miriam Kachel of Ephrata Manor.
Wolf's mother died of lockjaw at age 28. His father later married Mary Bitner and had four more children. Two of his brothers are now deceased. His younger sister, Elizabeth Shelly, lives in Ephrata and his brother Paul B. Wolf, lives in Colorado.
His father was a Church of the Brethren minister.
"They always expected a preacher's kid to be perfect," Wolf said, "and I was far from that."
Wolf attended the former Akron School, which is now the Dutch School in Akron and houses a health food store. "There were three grades in every room. One teacher had to teach three grades," he said.
Wolf said when he was 6 years old, "I was big enough to carry a bucket, so I started milking. When I was about 8 or 10, we would go to the Stockyards in Lancaster and then 'drive' the cattle we bought all the way to Adamstown. We had to be careful that none strayed off the road into someone's field or barnyard. We called it 'chasing the cattle.'"
Because his father was a butcher — as well as a pastor and farmer — when Wolf was about 16 or 17, his job was "to clean out the intestines and stomachs of beef to make sausages and tripe," Wolf said. "The butcher shop was right there on the farm. (His dad and uncle) made a lot of bologna and stood on the farmers markets in Ephrata and Lancaster's Southern End."
When he worked for his dad he got paid a dollar a day until he got married. "If I worked for someone else, my dad kept 90 cents on every dollar (to save for him)," he said.
Wolf learned to drive when he was 14.
"Nobody had to teach (driving). You just got behind the steering wheel. I learned on an old Model T with three pedals. If you wanted to stop quick you pushed all three at the same time," Wolf said.
When Wolf was 16 and finally got his driver's license, his dad used Wolf's saved-up earnings and got him a brand-new 1928 model.
"My dad bought me a $600 Chevrolet when I was 16. My car didn't cost me anything and gas was 6 gallons for a dollar," Wolf said.
After finishing high school, Wolf worked for his father at the Akron farm until two years after he married.
"Then I moved to the farm at Meadow Valley," which also belonged to his father. They grew wheat, corn and tobacco.
Wolf farmed until 1953 when he began working at Hershey Chocolate Co. He worked for Hershey until 1974, when he retired.
"I was at the milk receiving plant in Lincoln (now Ephrata) where we received it, took samples of it and cooled it. Then we waited for trucks to take it to Hershey," Wolf said.
Besides Hershey, Wolf also sold auto and homeowners insurance for Lititz Mutual from 1952 until retirement in 1974.
Wolf said he met his wife, Leona Brown, at the 5 and 10 store. He said it reminded him of an old song: "I met a Million Dollar Baby in a 5 and 10 Cent Store."
"I wanted to go with her. A friend of mine was going with her older sister. I went for something at the store and she was working there. I asked her if I could take her home in my car, and when she got off work, I took her home."
The couple married in 1929 when he was 19 and his wife was 18. She died in 1997. Wolf moved to Landis Homes the following year.
They have seven children: Jay of New Providence, Nancy Miller of Moravian Manor in Lititz, Patsy Hess of Lititz, George of Akron, Vern of Manheim, the late Orie (who had been a professional baseball player with the Milwaukee Braves, died of cancer at age 49), and Jesse of Lititz.
Wolf also has 20 grandchildren, 48 great-grandchildren and 35 great-great-grandchildren.
Wolf said apple-butter-making has been a tradition of his family, starting with his great-great-grandfather, George Wolf, in the mid-1800s.
The tradition has been continuous except for two years around World War II when there was not enough sugar, he said.
The Wolf family continues the tradition to this day in early October, and Wolf's son, George, now heads it up, he said.
After retirement, Wolf enjoyed traveling. "My wife and I had a motor home. She was a good traveler. She could make sense out of a map and she just told me where to go," Wolf said.
The couple traveled to Sebring, Fla., every winter for 18 years.
Wolf's other hobbies are word puzzles and people.
"I also like to watch the neighboring farmers with my nosey glasses (binoculars)," he said.
