At what age would you like to retire? Mid 50s? Early 60s? Late 60s? According to Annuity’s statistics, the average retirement age in the United States is 67 years old. There are exceptions, however, and Murray Shusterman is one big one.
Shusterman was born in 1912, and continued working as a corporate and real estate attorney until the day he died December 5, 2016 at the age of 104. He was born in Ukraine, and made his way to the United States after migrating with his parents to Pennsylvania.
He graduated from Temple University in 1933 and later on in his life become a professor at the school teaching both corporate and real estate law.
Shusterman’s career was not without its challenges. During an interview with the American Lawyer, he told reporters that finding work following graduation was a challenge, so for the first six months of his career, he worked as a local attorney without any pay.
In 1969, he landed a job at Pennsylvania law firm, Fox Rothschild. He remained with the firm throughout his career. After Shusterman’s passing, the firm stated, “Murray was a legend in the law not only in the Philadelphia region but nationally as he garnered attention in recent years as one of a handful of centenarian attorneys in the United States who continued to practice law.”
Shusterman was a strong willful man, and his son, Robert Shusterman, agreed. In an interview with the Inquirer back in 2014, Robert said “his father simply willed himself to keep going, despite the impediments of old age.”
Shusterman was asked on multiple occasions why he didn’t want to retire, especially after a beautiful and successful career and his reply to this comment he told the Inquirer again in 2014 was “What? Retire? Sit in a rocking chair and wait to die? All my life I’ve been active.”
It is rare for an individual to live to become a centenarian, let alone be able to say they continued working all that time. Shusterman will always be a legend in Pennsylvania, and hopefully his work will inspire more people to never stop doing the things they truly love.
