Rockland resident celebrates 103rd birthday – with a game of pool!

Marvin Reifsnyder – Royal Examiner File Photo/Malcolm Barr Sr.

Marvin Reifsnyder of Rockland chalked up another one December 10 – another birthday, that is.

On that day, World War II veteran Reifsnyder was 103 years old and celebrated with the visit of his son, Alan and his wife Libby, visiting from Florida, plus several neighbors who stopped by individually to say “Happy Birthday!”

“Uncle Marvin” who some call him (behind his back) was born in 1914, the year World War I, the “war to end all wars”, broke out in Europe.  Unfortunately that assessment of an end to war was wrong, and Reifsnyder enlisted in the U.S. Navy after the U.S. entered World War II some 27 years later. He served in the Pacific aboard a destroyer, which was anchored off the island of Iwo Jima the day in 1945 the Japanese surrendered.

Marvin lives alone – or rather with a caregiver – at the home he moved into with his late wife in 1986. She died in 2006 after 69 years of marriage. He is a native of Pennsylvania and worked in the Department of the Army at the Pentagon almost 50 years.

Despite diminishing eyesight, he is driven to the American Legion in Front Royal each morning to play pool, and once in awhile takes his place at a poker table. “I’m having trouble sometimes, seeing the ball, but I still enjoy going there,” he said.

Marvin is well remembered at the Shenandoah Valley Golf Club (SVGC) where he played the course into his mid-’90s. For exercise, he leaves his home for a daily stroll on the golf course, weather permitting.

“We still remember Marvin,” said Janet Maucione, banquet manager at SVGC, when told of his 103^rd birthday at a Rockland Christmas banquet December 14.