Warren Ritzma said he’s lived in his Berwyn home for more than nine decades, since the day he was brought into this world in 1917 by Dr. Arthur MacNeal. Yes, that Dr. MacNeal.

Ritzma said the physcian, who later founded and became the namesake of MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn, delivered him in his current bedroom, just feet from where he now sleeps.

Ritzma said his family moved from Holland in 1855 and settled in the Lawndale area of Chicago at Pulaski Road and Ogden Avenue.

The home in which he now lives, at 3220 East Ave., has been in his family for the past century — its construction was started a year before the city was officially incorporated. Ritzma’s parents paid $3,875 for the home in 1907 and moved in when it was completed in 1910, he said.

“I remember that I could stand in my front yard and see no homes at all until Ridgeland Avenue,” Ritzma said, glancing out the front window of his home. “I remember when this was all wide open.”

Ritzma has lived in the house his entire life, save for a couple years after his marriage to his late wife Lorraine. After his wedding, the couple lived in a nearby Berwyn apartment, but later moved back into the home with his father after his mother died.

The Berwyn resident overflows with stories and memories of his past. Stories hearken back to a time in the city few can imagine, and even fewer can actually remember.

He said he remembers ringing the bell as a first-grader at the local schoolhouse, and still has the letter he received from playing basketball in high school. He says he remembers when Berwyn was still a vast expanse of open, undeveloped land, and walking around it on wooden sidewalks and dirt roads.

He keeps in his home a yellowing phone book from 1947, when phone numbers were listed not in alphabetical order by a resident’s name, but by the street on which they lived. He still uses a grinding stone to sharpen his knives and a refrigerator from the ’30s to store his food. He washes his clothes using a ringer washer and hangs them out on a line to dry afterward.

The Berwyn resident said he feels fortunate to have spent his life in Berwyn and to be in the city to experience and celebrate its 100th birthday.

“I’ve had such a wonderful life in Berwyn,” Ritzma said. “My roots are here. ... I could tell you story after story.”