Harry Richard Landis

Harry Richard Landis (12 December 1899 – 4 February 2008) was, at age 108, the older of the last two American First World War veterans. The final one was Frank Buckles, who died in 2011. John Babcock, a naturalized American, served in the Canadian Army during the war, and also survived Landis.

Biography Landis was born to Jason and Alice Landis in Miller Township, Marion County, Missouri, between Hannibal and Palmyra, where he grew up on the family farm. He was the seventh of eight children.

Landis joined the United States Army in October 1918, and joined the Student Army Training Corps while attending Central Methodist University in Missouri. He did not complete basic training due to the war ending less than a month later. His experience of mopping the floor at an army hospital included exposure to the Spanish flu, which was actually the leading cause of death worldwide in the year 1918, killing about 75 million people. Landis was discharged in December 1918,

Landis was married twice, first for 46 years to Eunice who predeceased him. He remarried in 1978 to his second wife Eleanor. They moved to Florida in 1988, after previously living in Niagara Falls, NY and Dayton, OH.

He and his wife Eleanor, both died at Sun City Center in 2008. Harry died on 4 February, and Eleanor on 8 December aged 101.