World’s Oldest Person Edna Parker Dies at 115 (Photos)

Posted on November 29, 2008

Edna Parker, a former Indiana schoolteacher who was the world’s oldest person, died Wednesday at a nursing home in Shelbyville, Indiana at the age of 115. It is interesting that Edna Parker was at the same nursing home as the world’s tallest woman, Sandy Allen. Read more on the death of Edna Parker below.

Edna Parker’s death was announced by Dr. Stephen Coles of the Gerontology Research Group, which validates claims of extreme old age.

Parker was a member of the group referred to as the super-centenarians, which included people that are 110 years-old and older. Edna Parker has held the title of the world’s oldest person since the Aug. 14, 2007, death in Japan of Yone Minagawa, who was older by four months.

Currently the second-oldest person in the world now is a Los Angeles woman named Gertrude Baines, the daughter of former slaves, who is also the oldest person of African descent in the world. Gertrude Baines is 114 and lives in a nursing facility near USC.

With Edna Parker’s death, the new title of world’s oldest person is Maria de Jesus of Portugal, who turned 115 on Sept. 10.

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Edna Parker was born on April 20, 1893, in Morgan County, Indiana. Parker graduated Franklin College in 1911 and taught school in a two-room schoolhouse until she married Earl Parker, her childhood sweetheart and next-door neighbor.

Parker was a farmer’s wife who got up at 4 a.m. to fix breakfast for the family and hired hands and to do her chores.

Parker’s husband Earl died in 1938. Parker never remarried. Her survivors include five grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren and 13 great-great-grandchildren.

Parker actually lived all by herself at their family farm until she was 100. Even at the age of 100 years-old, Edna would climb ladders to fix a light. But once her family realized she was climbing ladders, they talked her into moving in with relatives.

Parker’s last years of her life were spent at the Heritage House Convalescent Center in Shelbyville, about 25 miles southeast of Indianapolis. A fellow resident of the center was Sandy Allen, whom Guinness World Records considered the world’s tallest woman at 7 feet, 7 inches. Allen died in August at the age of 53.

Last year, Parker helped Guinness record another feat when she met another super-centenarian, then-113-year-old Bertha Fry of Muncie, Ind. The meeting took place at Parker’s nursing home a few days after her 114th birthday. A Guinness representative on hand to witness the event said their combined age of 227 was “the highest aggregate age of two people meeting each other.”

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Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels commended the two women, who both grew up on small Indiana farms, became schoolteachers and ate a lot of meat and starch over the course of their exceptionally long lives. Parker especially enjoyed eggs, sausage, bacon and fried chicken. “I guess we’ll have to rethink lard,” Daniels quipped after hearing about her high-fat diet.

Parker, who credited her longevity to various factors, including education, remained relatively free of health problems in her last years. According to family members, she took few medications and at 113 could still walk.

She retained a sense of humor, evident at her 114th birthday celebration when she remarked that 114 was “several years too long. I probably knew George Washington.”

Our condolences to friends and family of Edna Parker!

Images: PR

Source: news