Oldest person you ever knew?

[Atticus Finch]

I've never met this lady, but reports say that the oldest person in North Carolina...and maybe in the entire USA...is living here in New Bern. Her birthday was celebrated yesterday and she is 114. She was born in the century before last...in 1896.

http://www2.wnct.com/nct/news/local...nc_celebrated_birthday_in_grand_style/139756/

AF

 

[Babydoll]

A beautiful photo, Babydoll.

I'm amazed at the facial resemblance between you, your mother and grandmother! You all have the same nose!!

The baby got her Daddy's nose, but my mouth. It's so neat to see the combination of the two of us in her.

 

[Spitfire]

The oldest person I ever knew must be my grandmother (fathers side).
She died when she was 93...allthough she was not that willing to let go, because - as she said: "I really want to see how it all ends!" (Like life was some TV series)

She was the kindest little old lady I have ever known, went to school for 7 years. Did not speak one word of english, german or anything but danish.
Still she got along, and when one of her grandchildren married an englisman, she just spoke louder and slower to him. He understood and he loved it. And her!
She also talked about how life was in Jutland, where she was born. She remembered when the first electric light came to the city. She lived through two world wars, a moonlanding and whatever...and was forever kind and mild.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

I have know of some folks who were in their late nineties, never personally met anyone. I have friends whose parents are now in their late 90's.

My mother is now 91 and she has outlived everyone she knew in her generation. She is in good health and still goes to the senior center every weekday.

The oldest person I would have liked to know was my great-great-great-great grandmother. Her name was Lady Anne Howard Tunnell and she was 104years old when she died (1710-1814). She celebrated her centennial by fording the Clinch river (in Tennessee) on horseback.

Also, check out the WW I vets on Wikipedia -- they are all around 110 years old, only three left now in the world, the last veterans of the Great War.

karol

 

[Shangas]

Happy Birthday, Granny Shangas!

I'm amazed I haven't responded to this!!

Thanks, Puzzy.

Before her Alzheimers set in, gran was a wonderful person. She knew how to cook, clean, how to tell stories, how to look after little children and all kinds of little knacks. I remember she used to tell me Aesop's Fables as bedtime stories. Gran only had a fourth-grade education, but that didn't stop her in being fluent in six languages & dialects (English, Chinese, Cantonese, Malay, Hakka and Hindi). She also wrote perfect English, Chinese and Malay.

My grandmother was a seamstress for almost fifty years and she ran her own tailor's shop before she retired in the early 1980s, after my grandfather died from cancer. It was at this time that my brother, then I, came into the world, and dad required someone to babysit us. Even at the age of 85, she was repairing all my clothes by hand or using her old Singer sewing-machine, which she'd had with her...probably since the end of the Second World War. It was a massive, cast-iron monster that took ten-year-old Shangas quite a bit of effort to carry around for her! One good thing I inherited from gran was some basic sewing-skills. I can thread needles and sew up rips and tears and sew buttons back onto my clothes. Another good thing I inherited from my grandmother was my love of history (thanks to all those war-stories!).

Another thing I inherited from gran (which dad thinks is a bad thing, but which I think is good)...is my grandmother's habit of hoarding things. Just like gran, I collect all kinds of useless or semi-useless crap...I'm so terrible.

I love granny.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Also, check out the WW I vets on Wikipedia -- they are all around 110 years old, only three left now in the world, the last veterans of the Great War.

My childhood eye doctor was a WW1 vet -- I think he must've been born around 1890, and he was in his 80s when I was his patient, but still very sharp and active. He kept a large panoramic photo of his Army unit on the wall of his exam room, and his diploma revealed that he'd gone directly into the service after graduating from optometry school in 1917.

He finally retired in the late 1970s when he couldn't get up the stairs to his office anymore -- "Dr. Bird," the sign said, "One Flight Up."

Jarring thought: the WW2 vets left today are getting to where they're older than the WW1 vets I knew as a child.

 

[Shangas]

I know this thread isn't really meant for this, but it seemed appropriate to post here that my grandmother (who celebrated her 96th birthday on the 7th of May this year), will not be with us for much longer. Our family physician has advised us (father and I) that gran is in the last stage of senile dementia -- Alzheimers Disease -- Very soon, she will become completely bedridden, whereafter, death could follow within weeks. Our GP has advised us to prepare for the worst, which could come anytime in the next few months.

Gran taught me so many things. She told me about the horrors of war from her own experiences with the Japanese, she taught me how to fix my own clothes, she showed me what few family heirlooms we had and she told me intimate details of what her childhood was like, nearly a full one hundred years ago. She truly is the most precious and the most beloved of all my family-members and I will miss her dearly. When she goes, with her goes another person from a generation almost lost to memory and history and another living link to the past, someone who saw things that some of us can only read about in our history books, can only see filmic represenations of on television, or which we can see in faded, sepia photographs. Stuff like a global depression, communist uprisings, two, all-encompassing global conflicts and countless other amazing events of the century just gone.

Anyone here with grandparents that you love, I advise you to spend as much time as you can with them. We all collect curiosities, antiques and nicknacks here, but the most precious antiques you can ever own are grandparents, who come only in a set of four...handmade and totally unique, nonrefundable if broken and whose value is more than gold. Our doctor has advised us to spend as much time with gran as we can over the coming weeks.

 

[W-D Forties]

I know this thread isn't really meant for this, but it seemed appropriate to post here that my grandmother (who celebrated her 96th birthday on the 7th of May this year), will not be with us for much longer. Our family physician has advised us (father and I) that gran is in the last stage of senile dementia -- Alzheimers Disease -- Very soon, she will become completely bedridden, whereafter, death could follow within weeks. Our GP has advised us to prepare for the worst, which could come anytime in the next few months.

Gran taught me so many things. She told me about the horrors of war from her own experiences with the Japanese, she taught me how to fix my own clothes, she showed me what few family heirlooms we had and she told me intimate details of what her childhood was like, nearly a full one hundred years ago. She truly is the most precious and the most beloved of all my family-members and I will miss her dearly. When she goes, with her goes another person from a generation almost lost to memory and history and another living link to the past, someone who saw things that some of us can only read about in our history books, can only see filmic represenations of on television, or which we can see in faded, sepia photographs. Stuff like a global depression, communist uprisings, two, all-encompassing global conflicts and countless other amazing events of the century just gone.

Anyone here with grandparents that you love, I advise you to spend as much time as you can with them. We all collect curiosities, antiques and nicknacks here, but the most precious antiques you can ever own are grandparents, who come only in a set of four...handmade and totally unique, nonrefundable if broken and whose value is more than gold. Our doctor has advised us to spend as much time with gran as we can over the coming weeks.

So sorry to hear that Shangas, but it does sound like she has had one helluva life. She also sounds like a lady who has few regrets and has done what we all should set out to do - raise a family, pass on knowledge and love, and simply go on.
Although when the inevitable happens you will be sad, please be happy to have had such an amazing gran, you and your family have been blessed.

 

[Bourne ID]

My Grandfather passed away two years ago at the age of 94. Sharp as a tack right to the end, taking care of himself in his own home. I spent several evenings with him that last week surrounded by my Aunts and Uncles, a few cousins and my mom. It's hard to describe how much he meant to me but I'm sure that many of you can understand. So much has happened since he passed, so many things I want to tell him and talk to him about, I guess it'll have to wait. I know I'll see him again someday.

 

[latinmajorac]

For the first 20 years of my like, i was lucky enough to know my maternal great grandfather. My grandmother always joked that her father was closer to me (his first great grandchild). for 20 years i was able to see what he did in life and how he did it. He had owned his own company for 78 years before his death, and i was lucky enough to talk to him about things that he had done that everyone else had forgotten. He lived to be 100 1/2, Died christmas day 2006 and i was lucky enough to have one last conversation before he died. He left a lasting impression on me that will never be dulled by time. I miss him dearly and if i am ever in a tough spot, i find myself asking him for help or advice. I am not a religious person, but i firmly believe that he lends a helping hand sometimes

 

[CharlieB]

Both of my father's parents, and my mother's father died before I was born, and my maternal granmother died at the age of 76.

So, the oldest person I ever knew was my wife's maternal grandmother who made it to 95.

 

[LandGirl1980]

The oldest person I know is my partner's Nana - she is 92 this summer

 

[nicholasb]

My granny Towers died aged 99. She could forget what she had just said but remember events from her early childhood.

 

[Danny Ocean]

My gran passed away a couple of years ago, aged 96. I was also fortunate to meet a couple of people, at a nearby residents home, that were aged 100 and 101.

Chatting with all three, and listening to their tales of years gone by, was absolutely fascinating.

Danny O

 

[frussell]

My grandfather died in March 2009, and he was 99 years old. As recently before his death as January of that year, he was still riding his big quarterhorse at least two or three times a week out in the desert. He had a small glass of tequila nearly every day, and said it was the secret to his longevity. Kept his mind sharp as could be right until his final hours. Smoked cigars and chewed tobacco all his life. His mother lived to be 101, I met her many times, and she actually died in her sleep with no ailments at all. She was still upset they had taken her driver's license a few years before, as her eyesight was fine. They said she had a smile on her face when they found her. Good way to go. Frank

 

[Old Rogue]

I know several people in their early 90's. Shame on me that I've never taken the time to ask them about the old days, guess I should correct that while I still have the chance. The person I knew who was born the longest time ago was my great-grandfather, who was born in 1894. I was around ten years old when he died so I never really talked to him about the old days. Although she wasn't the oldest person I've known, or the one born earliest, I have vivid memories of some of the stories about the old days that my maternal grandmother told me. Several times she reminisced about the first time she saw a car, seeing airships drifting overhead, when she first saw TV, etc. Speaking of TV, not sure if it was a story my grandmother told me or someone else, but there was a lady that lived in our town who was already at an advanced age when her family got a TV. She refused to sit and watch the TV set unless she put on her best clothes and fixed up her hair. The reason was she believed that if she could see the people on TV, they could see her. No one could convince her otherwise. Before we laugh too hard at that I guess we should consider what our grandkids and great-grandkids are going to think about our beliefs about the hottest new technology when we are in our dotage!!

 

[Stearmen]

Electricity

Before my Grandfather passed away in the 80s, my Mother asked him what the greatest thing that happened in his life time? Was it the Wight Brothers, man walking on the moon, he didn't bat an eye, he said, "the day electricity came to the farm!" Remember,electricity didn't come to a lot of America until after WWII.

 

[mflemming]

When I was about 10 years old I met a very elderly Walter Brock, who was the person who actually won the 1912 London-to-Paris air race that was the inspiration for the movie "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines". His aircraft hung in the Museum of Science and Industry here in Chicago for many years and is probably still in storage.

 

[Babydoll]

The oldest person I know is my 94-years-young Grannie. She was born January 2, 1916. I took my almost three month old daughter to visit her yesterday. My mom was there as well. We took a photo of four generations of the women from my family.

I hope we all live long lives like Grannie!

Grannie celebrated her 95th birthday a couple of weeks ago. We took Lilypie to visit her, and while Grannie was holding her, Lilypie reached up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. I got it on video. It is the sweetest thing!

 

[Mike in Seattle]

I have an aunt who's still a pistol at 99 - she's 100 in July and I have to miss the big party due to a long-planned northern European (Scandinavia and St. Petersburg) cruise. She wanted to blow off the party to go on the cruise. :eusa_clap She said her kids & grandkids were all a bunch of old fogies.

She was living on her own, driving, doing her own shopping and YARD WORK until about three years ago. Everyone was so positive she was going to wither up and die pretty shortly after my uncle died. That was 1975...