Indiana woman dies at 115 as world's oldest person

[Akoto]

Source: Associated Press

SHELBYVILLE, Ind. (AP) -- 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.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OBIT_OLDEST_PERSON?SITE=NVLAS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[Imagine My Surprise]

1. Why is this breaking? She died over 12 hours ago n/t

[Akoto]

3. Um. Sorry, the place I originally got it had only posted 6 hours prior. n/t

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[emilyg]

11. Bad mood?

[JI7]

2. that's incredible, imagine living that long and seeing the changes

[Lorien]

And that's a whole lotta changes. My great grandmother was born in 1893

also. She never believed that man went to the moon (after all, she was tn years old when the Wright Brothers took their first flight). She died in the mid 1980s, but there was still so much she couldn't grasp. VCRs, fax machines, CDs....an iPhone would have blown her mind! I would think that the sheer volume of changes over that span of time-more than in any other span of time in human history-would be kind of overwhelming.

[xchrom]

4. may god's Peace be with her and her family. nt

[Skittles]

5. she was 46 when WWII started

wow

[BrklynLiberal]

6. Wow..what an amazing woman....and an amazing life...

[pitohui]

14. amazing in what way? it sounds like a sad blinkered life

no chance at a career, stuck in a farmhouse cooking for farmhands and then you don't even have that, your husband dies really too young and you're stuck alone in a rural farmhouse for decades until age 100 with nothing and after that it's living off kids and the nursing home

she had not a spark of adventure or life in her poor body, to hear it

can you imagine, living over 100 years and never once even having the gonads to sip a glass of wine?

in some cases quality is to be preferred over quantity and i sure wouldn't want this woman's life, the word that springs to mind is "pathetic"

what did she ever do that was "amazing?" i guess it's amazing that she could still push the other nursing home residents around in their wheelchairs when she's 114, but is that a life we'd want for ourselves or are we simply patronizing someone who had a dull, blinkered existence by pretending to be amazed?

or maybe you just forgot the sarcasm icon and it went totally over my head! :-)

[wtmusic]

20. Maybe dull for you but not for her?

Different strokes for different folks.

[pitohui]

21. c'mon be honest with yourself no one here would want to live that life

it sounded absolutely miserable

we are just patronizing the woman by pretending it's anything other than what it was

there's different strokes for different folks -- and there is rats caught in a trap -- and it's pretty obvious what we have here -- hint the strong smell of cheese

she never TRIED anything, she never DID anything, she just marched in step for 115 years, they could not find ONE interesting thing she said or did, she never went anywhere, never even tried a sip of wine, her most "exciting" story was that she was pushing other peoples' wheelchairs around in a nursing home at age 114

if that isn't the perfect definition of hell, what is?

the kid who died the other day at age 11, who got the homeless food drive started, fuck, at age 11, he had more of a life than she did in over 100 years

it really makes you stop and think

quality not quantity

[wtmusic]

22. Wow.

I have known older people who have lived their lives like that, who are very content.

My dad lived what most would consider an austere life on a farm. They worked hard, and yet all he remembered were the practical jokes they played on each other, the stories they would tell, songs they would sing. A simple life does not an unhappy one make.

You seem to argue they don't know what they're missing, but someone else would say the same about you.

[KittyWampus]

25. what a great response your last line is.

You seem to argue they don't know what they're missing, but someone else would say the same about you.

[Hannah Bell]

28. only dull people need constant stimulation & novelty to "enjoy life".

[silverojo]

27. Who the FUCK are you to judge this wonderful woman?

Not all of us consider drinking alcohol to be one of the joys of life. Nobody in my immediate family has ever taken one sip of that crap, nor have we smoked or used drugs. You see, interesting people don't need chemical stimulants to enjoy life. Only boring people do.

The article said that this lady was active all her life, EVEN in the old age home. She was a teacher, a farmer's wife (which is a career in itself, as you'd know if you weren't completely ignorant about farm life), and encouraged people to improve upon their education. Just because a person lives alone doesn't mean they're hermits shutting themselves off from the rest of the world.

She wasn't "living off" her son, she was an important and valuable person in his life, and he loved her enough to care for her when she was unable to care for herself. Clearly, you have no concept of family love, either, to insult her and her son in this way.

Edna Parker witnessed more miracles in her lifetime than any of us ever will. You don't even have sense enough to appreciate what an incredible thing that was for her.

The only one whose life is pathetic around here is yours. If you can't grasp what an interesting life this lady had, you're the one who's poorer for it.

To educate yourself, may I suggest that you read the later writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder, to get some clue as to how much of a career it is to be a farmer's wife. There's a lot more to it than just cooking for hired hands. And an overriding theme of Laura's works was living life to its fullest by enjoying even the smallest, simplest things...being grateful for the little miracles we see every day.

That's a lesson you clearly need to learn, in order to improve yourself to the point where you don't need alcohol and "adventure!" to appreciate life.

[Posteritatis]

29. Teetotaling is an act of cowardice now? (nt)

[Capt. America]

7. I wonder if she was aware that a black man was elected president.

[pitohui]

15. considering she's from indiana that's probably what killed her

oh god i'm terrible, aren't i?

but somehow, forgive me baby jesus, i just don't see some farm wife who never even once let alcohol or tobacco pass her lips and who appears never to have gone anywhere or done anything except cook a lot of food for farmhands -- i just don't see that person as a likely progressive --

oh god, fortunately considering her age probably even her survivors are too old to get online and read this thread so i can be catty w.out guilt

[704wipes]

17. hey indiana voted for that black man

and guess what? there were about 10 smaller counties that increased their democratic vote percentage by over 25% and most small Indiana counties have about 1,000 black people in them, so that was white people voting for Barrack.

[pitohui]

18. i was sort of kidding but seriously you have to play the odds

i'm afraid i don't see any evidence in the story of this woman's life that she ever colored outside the lines -- if you read the whole article, it just sounds like a very dreary life

i can only hope for her sake that there is an untold story and that it wasn't as gloomy and depressing as it reads -- 115 yrs of feeding farmhands, your husband dies decades before you, and your last 15 yrs of life are living off kids/nursing home -- it's just depressing as crap is my point

[Jennicut]

26. I don't drink or smoke but I am pretty liberal

I don't know, she seemed like an nice enough lady. People are influenced by their circumstances. In her day women did not really have careers. My Grandmother is only 87 but she is light years from my mother and I am different my mother. Perhaps living on a farm made her happy at that time? At least they were living off the earth, no?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. My maternal grandmother was born in 1899 and lived till 2000

She remembered Minneapolis having wooden sidewalks like in a Western movie, traveling by horse-drawn streetcar, cooking with a wood stove, and moving from town to town by renting a boxcar instead of a moving van.

She remained in pretty good health until the age of about 97. Of course, she saw all kinds of inventions and social developments in her lifetime, but she considered computers and cell phones to be nothing short of magic and too esoteric for her.

The one relatively recent invention that she used and enjoyed was the microwave. It delighted her to no end that if her coffee grew cold, she could reheat it by sticking it in the microwave for a few seconds.

[Indiana_Dem]

9. Well, my grandpa is in the running! He's just 100.

He voted for Barack this November, too! He just entered the nursing home in July and still has all his wits. He turned 100 on September 4th and his last great goal was to vote in the election.

[JeanGrey]

12. My grandmother passed in 1983 at the age of 104.

[demodonkey]

16. Keep visiting him and keep checking on him. Nursing homes are not all nice safe places.

Look it up. The majority of nursing homes have at least one (or more) serious violations of health and safety regulations confirmed, and many elderly who go to nursing homes decline quickly.

I lost my 49 year-old brother last year after he went into a nursing home for rehab for a broken shoulder and contracted two concurrent drug-resistant infections while he was a resident there.

Probably the most amazing thing Edna ever did in her life (besides live to 115) was to survive as long as she did in a nursing home.

[Roon]

23. I was shocked to see how terrible the CNAs and kitchen personnel

treated the residents when I worked a nursing home.They weren't abusive,they were just plain mean to them. This one senior lady got tied to her wheelchair because she was very agitated.

[KnaveRupe]

13. Back in her day, Shelbyville was called Morganville.

And you could catch the ferry there for one bumblebee.

It was a great place to go if you needed a new heel for your shoe, but you were well advised to tie an onion to your belt (it was, after all, the style at the time.)

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. Shelbyville.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW5Eqycf4d4

[SidDithers]

19. "It's like that title is cursed, or something"...

credit to Seth Myers :)

Sid

[jberryhill]

24. Seriously

I have a google news alert for this.

The "World's Oldest Person" usually dies every couple of months.