He’s Been Casting Votes Since Taft

Maurice Reynolds says he hasn’t missed a presidential election since William Howard Taft was this country’s chief executive 85 years ago.

But Reynolds, 106, doesn’t seem particularly inclined to talk politics.

“There’s my absentee ballot,” he says, pointing to a lamp table in his room at the Cascade Plaza retirement home here.

Who is he voting for?

“That’s my business,” says Reynolds, who celebrated his birthday Sunday.

Born Nov. 3, 1890, Reynolds was raised in a ranch house on the banks of the Arkansas River on the Colorado prairie.

Benjamin Harrison was president of the 44 states, and most Americans still lived on farms or in small towns.

Reynolds moved to Portland in the 1920s with his wife, Amy, and his firstborn son, Clem. The family settled in the Seattle area prior to World War II.