[Vision2020] World's Oldest Person Dies

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (November 28, 2008) Spokesman Review -

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World's oldest person dies 
Indiana woman was 115 years, 220 days old

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http://tinyurl.com/5mye6n
Edna Parker, the oldest person in the world, died Wednesday.
(Photo: Associated Press)

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SHELBYVILLE, Ind. – Edna Parker, who became the world's oldest person more 
than a year ago, has died at age 115.

UCLA gerontologist Dr. Stephen Coles said Parker's great-nephew notified 
him that Parker died Wednesday at a nursing home in Shelbyville. She was 
115 years, 220 days old, said Robert Young, a senior consultant for 
gerontology for Guinness World Records.

Parker was born April 20, 1893, in central Indiana's Morgan County and had 
been recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest person 
since the 2007 death in Japan of Yone Minagawa, who was four months her 
senior.

Coles maintains a list of the world's oldest people and said Parker was 
the 14th oldest validated supercentenarian in history. Maria de Jesus of 
Portugal, who was born Sept. 10, 1893, is now the world's oldest living 
person, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

Parker had been a widow since her husband, Earl Parker, died in 1939 of a 
heart attack. She lived alone in their farmhouse until age 100, when she 
moved into a son's home and later to the Shelbyville nursing home.

Although she never drank alcohol or tried tobacco and led an active life, 
Parker didn't offer tips for living a long life. Her only advice to those 
who gathered to celebrate when she became the oldest person was "more 
education."
 
Parker outlived her two sons, Clifford and Earl Jr. She also had five 
grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren and 13 great-great-grandchildren.

Parker taught in a two-room school in Shelby County for several years 
after graduating from Franklin College in 1911. She wed her childhood 
sweetheart and neighbor in 1913.

But as was the tradition of that era, her teaching career ended with her 
marriage. Parker traded the schoolhouse for life as a farmer's wife, 
preparing meals for as many as a dozen men who worked on her husband's 
farm.

Parker noted with pride last year that she and her husband were one of the 
first owners of an automobile in their rural area.

Coincidentally, Parker lived in the same nursing home as 7-foot-7 Sandy 
Allen, whom Guinness recognized as the world's tallest woman until her 
death in August.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 


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