Gertrude Weaver dies at 116, less than a week after becoming world's oldest person

The Williams Funeral Home in Arkansas confirmed she had passed away just after 10am on Monday at her home at the Silver Oaks Health and Rehabilitation Centre in Camden.

Last week she had told staff there that she wanted a visit from the US president.

She said she had voted for Barack Obama twice.

Kathy Langley, an administrator at the nursing home, said staff were "devastated" by their loss.

She said Ms Weaver had enjoyed looking at newspaper articles written in the last few days about her being the world's oldest person.


Ms Weaver was named oldest person five days ago after the death of a woman in Japan, Misao Okawa, who was 117.

There are now thought to be just three people left alive who were born in the 1800s.

Camden Mayor Marie Trisollini spoke with Ms Weaver last week when the pair were celebrating the 100th birthday of another Silver Oaks resident.

"She was a really sweet lady. She was relatively perky and coherent when I talked with her before the party," Ms Trisollini said.

"When you asked for advice on how to live a long life she would say, 'Use a lot of skin moisturiser, treat everyone nice, love your neighbour and eat your own cooking. Don't eat at fast food places.'"

The retirement home had already been planning her 117th birthday party, Ms Trisollini said.

Ms Weaver was born in 1898 and she celebrated her birthday on 4 July - although records suggest she may actually have been born in April of that year.

Her age was verified using census records and a marriage certificate from 1915, which listed her age as 17.

She worked as a domestic helper and was born in Arkansas to parents who were sharecroppers, tenants who use land to grow crops, some of which are traded with the landowner as rent.

The oldest known person is now Jeralean Talley, who was born on 23 May 1899.

Ms Talley, who lives with her daughter Thelma Holloway in a bungalow near Detroit, says that her religious faith is the reason for her long life.

"It's the Lord. Everything is in his hands," she said in an interview last year.

She bowled until she was 104. She never smoked or drank alcohol and her only surgery was to have her tonsils removed, she said.


Source: BBC