Brother Walter Breuning 33°, World's Oldest Man, Dies at 114

Brother Walter Breuning 33°, the world's oldest man, died Thursday April 14, 2011 at the age of 114 years and 205 days. He was born on September 21, 1896, and was declared the world's oldest man and the fourth oldest person in the world on July 18, 2009, by the Guinness Book of World Records.

Brother Walter received his degrees in Great Falls Lodge No. 118, Great Falls, Montana. He was Initiated on March 7, 1925, Passed on April 4, 1925 and raised to the sublime degree of a Master Mason on May 16, 1925. He affiliated with Cascade Lodge No. 34, Great Falls, Montana on January 1, 1992. He had served as Secretary of Great Falls Lodge No. 118 from January 1, 1946 through December 31, 1968. Brother Breuning received the Meritorious Service Medal on June 24, 1993.

He was a 33° Scottish Rite Freemason in the Valley of Great Falls, Montana.

Walter Breuning- Scottish Rite Freemason from Scottish Rite on Vimeo.

From the AP last September:

Walter Breuning was born on Sept. 21, 1896, in Melrose, Minnesota, and moved to Montana in 1918, where he worked as a clerk for the Great Northern Railway for 50 years.

His wife, Agnes, a railroad telegraph operator from Butte, died in 1957. The couple had no children.

Breuning inherited the distinction of being the world's oldest man in July 2009 when Briton Henry Allingham died at age 113. Allingham had joked that the secret to long life was "Cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women — and a good sense of humor," according to Guinness World Records.

His brethren mourn. R.I.P.