Rochester resident Konrad Schaum celebrated a belated 94th birthday Monday by playing several sets of tennis at Rochester Tennis Connection.
Schaum plays two to three times a week in defiance of the limits that age normally places on most people. Off the court, Schaum’s geniality shines as he regales a guest about his life coming from a destitute German village, surviving World War II and forging a life in the U.S.
“He’s a fascinating man,” Tennis Connection staff member Carol Kivimagi said.
At Tennis Connection, his fellow tennis players presented Schaum with a three-candle cake, prompting the “birthday boy” to joke that he had finally reached manhood. He exchanged fist bumps with another player.
“He’s got a great spirit, and he makes fun of himself,” Kivimagi said.
When he’s not playing tennis, Schaum swims and works out at the Dan Abraham Health Living Center. He dated his interest in exercise to his high school days in Germany when he biked to school.
But Schaum also credited his Christian life, wise investment decisions and dumb luck as factors that lengthened or enriched his life.
One thing is for sure: Age hasn’t left a souring trace on Schaum, who smiles and laughs as if second nature, putting a person in mind of the phrase, “Smile and the world smiles back at you.”
Schaum was born in 1924 in the village of Sirgwitz in then-eastern Germany, which later became part of Poland after World War II. His youth coincided with the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party, an organization Schaum says he was never a part of.
After graduating from high school, more student than soldier, he and others were sent to Russia late in the war. He was severely wounded when a Russian bomb exploded near him, killing three people standing nearby.
“We were standing near it, and my helmet and everything was filled with holes,” he recalled. He was told he was “extremely lucky” to have survived.
After the war, Schaum immigrated to Canada and then the U.S. He taught German literature at Princeton, the University of Denver and, in the last 20 years of his working life, at Notre Dame. In retirement, he wrote three textbooks on German literature in his native German. He has been married to the same woman for six decades. They have two grown children.
Playing tennis is one of his first loves and a game he intends to play as long as he can. Recently, a new study found that playing tennis and other sports that are social might add years to your life.
The study’s surprise wasn’t its finding that adults who participated in tennis or racket and team sports lived longer than people who were sedentary. But rather its conclusion that they lived longer than people who took part in solitary activities such as jogging, swimming and cycling.
After his impromptu birthday party, Schaum was asked what he planned to do next.
“Go to bed,” he said. “Sleep is very good.”
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