On July 30, 1924, Arthur Scott was born at Stamford Hospital. On July 30, 2024, Arthur Scott, or affectionately known as Scotty to his family, will turn 100. Scotty has been a resident of Newtown since 1991, when he and his wife Jo fell in love with a house on what was then a dirt road.

The two built their home there and decorated the backyard with feeders to feed the area’s diverse birds and cat statues. Woodpeckers, finches and blue jays flutter around the large picture window where Scotty now spends time with his 15-year-old cat, Stripes.

Scotty explained how he and his wife Jo would turn their house into a dance hall on Monday nights when they practiced together. They practiced on Mondays, took lessons on Wednesdays, and went dancing together on Fridays. As Scotty talked about his wife, the love he still felt for her poured out of him. It was clear that it was a huge part of his life. The loss of his wife had a lasting impact on him and the pain still seeps through two years later.

Scotty lost both of his siblings at a young age. His youngest sister tragically passed away at age five after being hit by a car, and his brother passed away at age 15 from leukemia.

“My mom and dad were devastated,” Scotty said. “They both had heart attacks and somebody had to work to get the money. Well, that somebody was me, because I was the only one left.”

He started working two jobs to support his parents and himself, and it left him no time to go to school or get a college education, but that didn’t stop him from becoming a successful young man.

In the 1950s, Scotty went to work for General Electric. As an uneducated man, “you would think this is unbelievable,” he began, “I was the Chief Auditor.” While still at General Electric, he received a call from Perkin-Elmer Corporation and went in for an interview.

“We started talking and talking and talking. And I got there at 1:30, around 4 o’clock … he hired me,” Scotty said. In this new role, he worked on the space program that sent the first humans to the moon. He said he stayed with his father for three months after losing his mother and watched the moon landing live on television.

“My father said to me, ‘Well, I’m going to bed now.’ I looked at him and said, ‘You better sit back down. Because I have something to tell you. I’m the man who at 16 … gave up his education to keep this family going. And in my moment of glory, you’re not going to go to bed.’” His father ended up staying up later than he did to watch the footage.

Although Scotty dropped out of high school, he was given the opportunity to study at the University of California at Berkeley for about three months. In his later years, he took a “home study” course from Michigan State University in business management. Scotty was a great student, even outscoring many of the other students in his class.

The professor came into the classroom and said he was going to resign. “‘Apparently I don’t know how to teach anymore… In fact, sitting next to Mr. True, with no high school education, I scored better than some of you,'” Scotty recounted. He said, “I thought, ‘Poor Scotty, you’re not a dumbass.'”

Scotty had 26 surgeries in his life, but even then he didn’t stop driving until he was 98. He walked at least a mile every day with his second wife. “We walked two miles if it was clear, one mile if it was raining or snowing.”

The duo kept themselves in shape by touring Europe and taking over the dance floor in Germany when the orchestra started playing Glen Miller’s “In the Mood.”

“Dancing is just a great way to stay in shape and it’s also a lot of fun,” Scotty said.

He has seen changes in the town, such as the influx of eateries. He says there are more cars than ever and remembers when there were only two restaurants in town. As mentioned above, when he moved to his house in 1991, the road was unpaved. Part of it is still unpaved, but his driveway now opens onto a paved road.

He wants young people to know that “you can’t beat education, you really can’t. It’s the story of your life, it really is.”

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Reporter Sam Cross can be reached at [email protected].

This is Scotty with a bowling trophy he won. Not only was he an avid dancer, he was also an avid bowler. —Photos courtesy of Thomas Wisnieff

This is a photo taken in 1931 when Scotty was only seven years old. He says, “(This photo) was taken on the porch (of his parents’ house) in Stamford, Connecticut.”

Scotty’s stepson, Tom Wisnieff, said, “He looks lively, I think he just got back from a walk.”

Scotty shared his favorite memory, saying, “I can still see Jo walking up to me, and I was beaming.” This is a photo of them on their wedding day in 1990.