Decades ago, Richard “Doc” Vallon worked as a shoeshiner. For one nickel, he polished and shined his customers’ leather shoes on Boston Common. Today, the wooden shoeshining kit still sits in Vallon’s Belmont home. Inside the box are the old bristle brushes, polishing cloth, and shoe polish.
When he home returned after serving as a medic in the Marine Corps during World War II, he found himself once again in the feet, shoe, and ankle business: this time, in podiatry. Over a career spanning 75 years, Vallon treated countless patients.
Today, Sunday, Aug. 24, Vallon turns 104 years old. According to Town Clerk Ellen Cushman, Vallon is one of 15 Belmont residents who are 100 years of age or older.
To mark the occasion, Vallon and his family intend to celebrate his birthday with dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and a cruise on the Charles River.
“He’s the life of the party,” said daughter Joni Vallon. “Even at 104, he’s still kind of a party animal.”
Born in 1921, Vallon served as a first-class pharmacist’s mate in the Marines in 1942. He was transferred from the Navy to a replacement battalion, stepping in for those who had been killed.
Vallon was shipped to Okinawa, Japan, where he was on the front lines of the battle. There, he was tasked with bandaging soldiers, administering morphine, and treating the wounded.
“My mother was almost crazy with fear that I would get killed,” he said. “I didn’t take any chances.”
All around was intense warfare in the form of bombs and flamethrowers.
“War, to me, stands for waste, annihilation, and rehabilitation; that’s the acronym for war. It’s a terrible waste of people, time, and money. Mostly people.”
Nowadays, Vallon is an active member of the Beth El Temple Center and the Belmont Lions Club in town. For the Lions Club, he writes invocations.
He has five children, seven grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. After the war, Vallon married his wife of 74 years, Ruth, whom he met at an army dance. In 2022, Ruth died at 96 years old. His daughter Jean Vallon attributed the success of the decades-long marriage to “not sweating the small stuff.”
Joni Vallon said she learned the importance of keeping both her mind and body active from her father.
As a child of the Great Depression era, Vallon has witnessed world change. Fluctuation, he expressed, is inevitable.
At 103, turning 104, Vallon’s advice is this: “The secret of success is to learn, learn, learn.”