She's 107, drinks ginger ale, and carries her own jalapeños: US woman reveals her secret to a long, healthy life
Mildred Baron
is not slowing down — she's spicing things up, quite literally. The Freehold, New Jersey resident recently celebrated her milestone birthday surrounded by family, friends and a community that calls her the life of the party. But what truly stands out is her remarkable simplicity when it comes to the age-old question: what's the secret to a long and fulfilling life?
'Be very calm, be peaceful and adopt my saying: 'This too shall pass,'' Baron told Asbury Park Press (APP). For Baron, this has not just been a mantra but a life philosophy, guiding her through some of the most challenging chapters of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Explore courses from Top Institutes in
Please select course:
Select a Course Category
CXO
Others
Leadership
MBA
Data Science
Data Science
Management
Artificial Intelligence
Product Management
Healthcare
Project Management
Finance
others
Degree
Digital Marketing
MCA
Data Analytics
Cybersecurity
Public Policy
Technology
Design Thinking
healthcare
Operations Management
Skills you'll gain:
Technology Strategy & Innovation
Emerging Technologies & Digital Transformation
Leadership in Technology Management
Cybersecurity & Risk Management
Duration:
24 Weeks
Indian School of Business
ISB Chief Technology Officer
Starts on
Jun 28, 2024
Get Details
Skills you'll gain:
Operations Strategy for Business Excellence
Organizational Transformation
Corporate Communication & Crisis Management
Capstone Project Presentation
Duration:
11 Months
IIM Lucknow
Chief Operations Officer Programme
Starts on
Jun 30, 2024
Get Details
Skills you'll gain:
Digital Strategy Development Expertise
Emerging Technologies & Digital Trends
Data-driven Decision Making
Leadership in the Digital Age
Duration:
40 Weeks
Indian School of Business
ISB Chief Digital Officer
Starts on
Jun 30, 2024
Get Details
Skills you'll gain:
Customer-Centricity & Brand Strategy
Product Marketing, Distribution, & Analytics
Digital Strategies & Innovation Skills
Leadership Insights & AI Integration Expertise
Duration:
10 Months
IIM Kozhikode
IIMK Chief Marketing and Growth Officer
Starts on
Apr 7, 2024
Get Details
From Breadlines to Birthday Toasts
Born in Brooklyn in 1918, Baron's life spans an era that has witnessed everything from Prohibition and the Great Depression to World War II and the COVID-19 pandemic. She vividly recalls standing in breadlines as a child, her mother feeding a family of five with a single sack of potatoes, and watching neighbors grapple with despair.
Still, she recalls those times not with bitterness, but with a calm resilience. 'But as I said, that too, passed,' she repeated, underscoring the emotional strength that's helped carry her across generations.
During World War II, while many of the men she knew were drafted, Baron secured a job in accounting — a profession she stuck with for more than four decades until her retirement.
You Might Also Like:
She is 100 and still hitting the gym with 2 trainers: The fitness secrets behind a centenarian's strength and longevity
— ApplewoodVLG (@ApplewoodVLG)
Spicy Snacks, 3D Art and Ginger Ale Cheers
Retirement didn't dull Baron's spirit. Today, she remains active in the
Applewood Village
senior living community where she moved just before turning 100. She participates in party planning, creates 3D art, and enjoys cocktail hours with fellow residents — her drink of choice? Ginger ale, though she jokingly claims beer from time to time.
'She's always the life of the party,' said Keith Grady, executive director of Applewood Village, in his interview with APP. 'She's always been a concerned resident for others, just a real great neighbor to have.'
And yes, she still loves spicy food. One of her close friends, 95-year-old Arline Fischer, shared that Baron would often carry her own jalapeños. 'She lives off spices,' Fischer laughed.
Family, Friendship and Cardboard Conversations
Her greatest pride, though, lies not in achievements or longevity but in family. Sitting beside her is her 80-year-old daughter, Bonnie Greenstein, who speaks of her mother with admiration. 'She's intelligent, a talented artist and knows what's going on in the world. She just gets it,' Greenstein said.
Due to mild hearing loss, Greenstein communicates with Baron through a clever hack — speaking through a cardboard paper towel tube to amplify her voice. Despite this, their bond is strong, full of laughter and mutual respect.
Baron is also a proud grandmother to two and great-grandmother to five, calling them the greatest joy of her life.
Peace, Not Perfection
As for the future, Baron no longer looks too far ahead but still holds onto hope. 'I'd like to see peace in this world,' she told APP. 'All over. I don't think I'll see it, but hopefully it'll happen someday.'
According to World Population Review, Baron is one of approximately 2,367 centenarians living in New Jersey in 2025. Yet even among this rare group, her story stands out — not because of her age alone, but because of the spirit she brings to each day.
In a world obsessed with longevity hacks, Mildred reminds us that sometimes, the best advice is the simplest: this too shall pass. And if you're lucky, maybe it'll pass with jalapeños in your purse and laughter in your heart.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
28 minutes ago
- Time of India
Kotak's Rohit Tandon on beating the market with earnings momentum
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Kotak Mutual Fund's Rohit Tandon is betting on a different kind of momentum—not price, but profits . In this conversation, the fund manager unpacks the strategy behind the newly launched Kotak Active Momentum Fund , built on earnings upgrades, analyst revisions, and quant muscleEdited excerpts from a chat:Kotak Active Momentum Fund builds up on the Kotak Quant Fund and our endeavour to provide investors with more quant-model based schemes. Markets are a slave to earnings. Time and again, we've seen that stocks selected on the basis of earnings momentum outperform in bull & bear market phases. It's a pattern that's stood the test of time. Kotak Active Momentum Fund provides investors a robust tool —backed by data, driven by fundamentals to participate in momentum of price momentum investing is a strategy where investors buy stocks whose prices are going up, expecting this trend to continue. However, momentum isn't just about price. Earnings momentum selects stocks based on earnings revisions and analyst ratings, backed by strong fundamentals. By uniquely focusing on the earnings momentum factor, Kotak Active Momentum fund looks at companies whose profits are increasing as a result of analysts upgrading forecasts or companies showing positive earnings surprises. This strategy allows for a more fundamentally grounded momentum approach, aiming to capture sustainable performance rather than short-term price proprietary Earnings Momentum model evaluates stock momentum using a combination of earnings growth, sales growth, and analyst ratings. Over a 12-year back-testing period, the model delivered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24% (net of 2.5% annual transaction costs), significantly outperforming the benchmark return of 16%. In annual back-tests, the model outperformed the index in 8 out of 12 years, with an average excess return of 10% (or 1000 basis points). In the remaining 4 years, it underperformed with an average shortfall of just 4%. This demonstrates that the model's outperformance is not only stronger but also sustained over a longer duration, while periods of underperformance are relatively mild and short-lived. Stress testing the model during challenging market phases—such as the NBFC crisis (Oct 2015–Feb 2016), the COVID-19 market correction (Feb–Mar 2020), and the recent downturn (Oct 2024–Feb 2025)—shows that it performed in line with the benchmark and consistently outperformed traditional price momentum strategies.A systematic investment approach builds portfolios based on a shared characteristic—commonly referred to as a factor. Unlike discretionary fund managers, we do not rely on macroeconomic assessments, stock-picking intuition, or market timing. Instead, our model-driven strategy is grounded in data and rules. Back-testing results demonstrate that this approach has consistently delivered robust outperformance across various market conditions—including business cycles, geopolitical disruptions, and other unpredictable events. This resilience highlights the strength and reliability of a systematic framework in navigating complex market our discretionary portfolios, we remain constructive on healthcare, consumer durables, and financial services over the medium term. These sectors are closely aligned with the themes of rising consumption and financialization, which we believe offer strong growth potential—particularly if the anticipated uptick in mass premium consumption the Kotak Active Momentum Fund takes a different approach, focusing on emerging earnings trends that may evolve into structural drivers over the medium term. As a result, sector allocations in the fund can shift significantly with each rebalancing cycle. Currently, the highest-weighted sectors are financials, industrials, and materials. A key insight from our back-testing is that sector weights tend to remain well-distributed, avoiding excessive concentration in any single area. This ensures a balanced exposure while still capturing momentum-driven markets inherently present both opportunities and risks. In the current environment, marked by global macroeconomic volatility, the foremost concern for investors is the potential economic slowdown. Geopolitical tensions, fuelled by ongoing conflict-related news flows, rank as the second major risk. Thirdly, there are growing apprehensions around technological obsolescence, particularly with the transformative impact of AI across various sectors. Despite these challenges, it's important to recognize that markets move in cycles. Following a period of earnings downgrades, an upgrade cycle can be expected. Our rule-based portfolio construction, grounded in fundamental metrics such as earnings, sales growth, helps mitigate risks by focusing on improving earnings quality. Moreover, when the upgrade cycle begins, the model behind this fund is designed to proactively identify potential areas of earnings improvement allowing it to position ahead of other funds and capitalize on emerging in-house model relies exclusively on earnings momentum as its core signal. Since it is built around a single factor, it avoids the complexity of managing trade-offs between multiple signals. Also the model incorporates a range of sub-parameters that enhance its predictive power and improve portfolio selection the model's high churn rate on rebalancing, how do you manage transaction costs and liquidity challenges, especially in less liquid stocks?Quantitative funds must navigate a delicate balance: either risk factor signals becoming outdated due to infrequent rebalancing or incur higher transaction costs from frequent adjustments. Our model is carefully optimized to deliver the best possible performance, taking transaction costs into account. To enhance efficiency, we've incorporated safeguards that exclude illiquid stocks at an early stage of the investment process. Over a 12-year back-testing period, the strategy has maintained an average exposure of 57% to mid-cap stocks and 39% to large-cap is important for investors to understand the results of the back-tests. Investors should analyze the economic and business cycle conditions present when the fund performed well and use these observations to understand better scenarios when fund performance dipped. Armed with this history, investors will allow investors to endure periods of underwhelming returns. Other than this certain parameters that investors should be conversant with are Sharpe Ratio to understand risk-adjusted performance, maximum drawdown to assess downside risk & turnover ratio to understanding investors today are concerned about market valuations. Do you think momentum works across all valuation regimes, or are there times you advise greater caution?Market valuations at an index level are higher than historical average levels and investors should have return expectations lower than what they have observed in the immediate the same time there are opportunities at a stock level in all market regimes. The portfolio created from the earnings momentum is fundamentally sound and has worked across expensive and cheap investing does not have much mindshare among domestic investors. Many Indian retail investors mistakenly view factor-based investing as just another stock-picking method. They often underestimate its long-term, rule-based discipline and ignore the role of factor risk premia in performance. There's also a belief that such strategies don't work in Indian markets—despite evidence to the contrary – as indicated by our-backtests. We encourage domestic investors to understand more about systematic funds through their advisors.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
an hour ago
- Business Standard
Trump says June jobs data 'rigged', Wall Street and economists disagree
The monthly jobs report is already closely-watched on Wall Street and in Washington but has taken on a new importance after President Donald Trump on Friday fired the official who oversees it. Trump claimed that June's employment figures were "RIGGED" to make him and other Republicans "look bad". Yet he provided no evidence and even the official Trump had appointed in his first term to oversee the report, William Beach, condemned the firing of Erika McEntarfer, the director of the Bureau of Labour Statistics appointed by former President Joe Biden. The firing followed Friday's jobs report that showed hiring was weak in July and had come to nearly a standstill in May and June, right after Trump rolled out sweeping tariffs. Economists and Wall Street investors have long considered the job figures reliable, with share prices and bond yields often reacting sharply when they are released. Yet Friday's revisions were unusually large -- the largest, outside of a recession, in five decades. And the surveys used to compile the report are facing challenges from declining response rates, particularly since COVID, as fewer companies complete the surveys. Nonetheless, that has not led most economists to doubt them. "The bottom line for me is, I would not take the low collection rate as any evidence that the numbers are less reliable," Omair Sharif, founder and chief economist at Inflation Insights, a consulting firm, said. Many academics, statisticians and economists have warned for some time that declining budgets were straining the government's ability to gather economic data. There were several government commissions studying ways to improve things like survey response rates, but the Trump administration disbanded them earlier this year. Heather Boushey, a top economic adviser in the Biden White House, noted that without Trump's firing of McEntarfer, there would be more focus on last week's data, which points to a slowing economy. "We are having this conversation about made-up issues to distract us from what the data is showing," Boushey said. "Revisions of this magnitude in a negative direction may indicate bad things to come for the labour market." Here are some things to know about the jobs report: Economists and Wall Street trust the data Most economists say that the Bureau of Labour Statistics is a nonpolitical agency staffed by people obsessed with getting the numbers right. The only political appointee is the commissioner, who does not see the data until it is finalised, two days before it is issued to the public. Erica Groshen, the BLS commissioner from 2013 to 2017, said she suggested different language in the report to "liven it up", but was shot down. She was told that if asked to describe a cup as half-empty or half-full, BLS says "it is an eight ounce cup with four ounces of liquid". The revised jobs data that has attracted Trump's ire is actually more in line with other figures than before the revision. For example, payroll processor ADP uses data from its millions of clients to calculate its own jobs report, and it showed a sharp hiring slowdown in May and June that is closer to the revised BLS data. Trump and his White House have a long track record of celebrating the jobs numbers -- when they are good. These are the figures Trump is attacking Trump has focussed on the revisions to the May and June data, which on Friday were revised lower, with job gains in May reduced to 19,000 from 144,000, and for June to just 14,000 from 147,000. Every month's jobs data is revised in the following two months. Trump also repeated a largely inaccurate attack from the campaign about an annual revision last August, which reduced total employment in the United States by 818,000, or about 0.5 per cent. The government also revises employment figures every year. Trump charged that the annual revision was released before the 2024 presidential election to "boost" Vice President Kamala Harris's "chances of Victory", yet it was two months before the election and widely reported at the time that the revision lowered hiring during the Biden-Harris administration and pointed to a weaker economy. Here's why the government revises the data The monthly revisions occur because many companies that respond to the government's surveys send their data in late, or correct the figures they have already submitted. The proportion of companies sending in their data later has risen in the past decade. Every year, the BLS does an additional revision based on actual job counts that are derived from state unemployment insurance records. Those figures cover 95 per cent of US businesses and are not derived from a survey but are not available in real time. These are the factors that cause revisions Figuring out how many new jobs have been added or lost each month is more complicated than it may sound. For example, if one person takes a second job, should you focus on the number of jobs, which has increased, or the number of employed people, which has not? (The government measures both: The unemployment rate is based on how many people either have or do not have jobs, while the number of jobs added or lost is counted separately). Each month, the government surveys about 121,000 businesses and government agencies at over 630,000 locations -- including multiple locations for the same business -- covering about one-third of all workers. Still, the government also has to make estimates: What if a company goes out of business? It likely will not fill out any forms showing the jobs lost. And what about new businesses? They can take a while to get on the government's radar. The BLS seeks to capture these trends by estimating their impact on employment. Those estimates can be wrong, of course, until they are fixed by the annual revisions. The revisions are often larger around turning points in the economy. For example, when the economy is growing, there may be more startups than the government expects, so revisions will be higher. If the economy is slowing or slipping into a recession, the revisions may be larger on the downside. Here's why the May and June revisions may have been so large Ernie Tedeschi, an economic adviser to the Biden administration, points to the current dynamics of the labour market: Both hiring and firing have sharply declined, and fewer Americans are quitting their jobs to take other work. As a result, most of the job gains or losses each month are probably occurring at new companies, or those going out of business. And those are the ones the government uses models to estimate, which can make them more volatile. Groshen also points out that since the pandemic, there has been a surge of new start-up companies, after many Americans lost their jobs or sought more independence. Yet they may not have created as many jobs as startups did pre-COVID, which throws off the government's models. Revisions seem to be getting bigger The revisions to May and June's job totals, which reduced hiring by a total of 258,000, were the largest -- outside recessions -- since 1967, according to economists at Goldman Sachs. Kevin Hassett, Trump's top economic adviser, went on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday and said, "What we have seen over the last few years is massive revisions to the jobs numbers." Hassett blamed a sharp drop in response rates to the government's surveys during and after the pandemic: "When COVID happened, because response rates went down a lot, then revision rates skyrocketed." Yet calculations by Tedeschi show that while revisions spiked after the pandemic, they have since declined and are much smaller than in the 1960s and 1970s. Other concerns about the government's data Many economists and statisticians have sounded the alarm about things like declining response rates for years. A decade ago, about 60 per cent of companies surveyed by BLS responded. Now, only about 40 per cent do. The decline has been an international phenomenon, particularly since COVID. The United Kingdom has even suspended publication of an official unemployment rate because of falling responses. And earlier this year, the BLS said that it was cutting back on its collection of inflation data because of the Trump administration's hiring freeze, raising concerns about the robustness of price data just as economists are trying to gauge the impact of tariffs on inflation. US government statistical agencies have seen an inflation-adjusted 16-per cent drop in funding since 2009, according to a July report from the American Statistical Association. "We are at an inflection point," the report said. "To meet current and future challenges requires thoughtful, well-planned investment ... In contrast, what we have observed is uncoordinated and unplanned reductions with no visible plan for the future. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
2 hours ago
- Business Standard
Oil dips to one-week low as Opec+ output boost stokes oversupply fears
Oil prices fell to their lowest levels in a week on Monday after Opec+ agreed to another large output increase in September, adding to oversupply concerns after US data showed lacklustre fuel demand in the top consuming nation. Brent crude futures fell 91 cents, or 1.3 per cent, to settle at $68.76 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude declined by $1.04, or 1.5 per cent, to close at $66.29 a barrel. Both contracts settled at their lowest in a week, after declining close to 3 per cent on Friday. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, together known as Opec+, agreed on Sunday to raise oil production by 547,000 barrels per day (bpd) for September. The latest in a series of accelerated output increases aimed at capturing market share was in line with market expectations and marks a full and early reversal of the group's largest tranche of output cuts, amounting to about 2.5 million bpd, or about 2.4 per cent of global demand. While the group cited healthy market fundamentals to back its decision, data released by the US government last week showed the weakest gasoline demand in May, the start of the country's summer driving season, since the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. The data also showed US oil production at a monthly record high in May, adding to global oversupply concerns. Oil traders are now hedging for the possibility of further supply increases from Opec+, with potential discussions to unwind a further 1.65 million bpd of cuts at the group's next meeting on September 7 adding pressure to oil prices. "Opec+ retains a substantial amount of spare production capacity, and markets are now watching closely to see whether the group will tap into it," StoneX analyst Alex Hodes said. "So far, there are no clear signals that Opec+ intends to deploy this additional capacity, but the possibility remains on the table," he added. Analysts at Goldman Sachs expect the actual increase in supply from the eight Opec+ countries that have raised output since March will be 1.7 million bpd because other members have cut output after overproducing. Investors also continued to digest the impact of the latest US tariffs on exports from dozens of trading partners, and remain wary of further US sanctions on Russia. US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose 100 per cent secondary tariffs on Russian crude buyers as he seeks to pressure Moscow into halting its war in Ukraine. Trump on Monday said he will substantially raise tariffs on India over its purchases of Russian oil, after two Indian government sources told Reuters over the weekend that the country will keep buying oil from Moscow despite Trump's threats. That development helped limit oil's losses. About 1.7 million bpd of crude supply will be at risk if Indian refiners stop buying Russian oil, ING analysts said in a note. "All eyes in the market will now shift to US President Trump's decision on Russia this Friday and whether he targets buyers of Russian oil with secondary sanctions/tariffs or not," UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
