Delphia Welford Delphia S. Welford (September 9, 1875November 14, 1992) was an American supercentenarian claimed to have been born on September 9, 1881; however, research conducted by the Gerontology Research Group between 2016 and 2023 concluded that she was actually born in 1875, and that she was born in
Okolona, Mississippi. Welford's parents were Richard and Heddie Welford. The family moved to
Humboldt, Tennessee, when she was a teenager. She had one son, Leo Mathis, in the late 1890s. Welford never married and spent the rest of her life in Humboldt. She was a homemaker and a member of the Lane Chapel C.M.E Church. Welford died at Parkview Manor Health Care Center in Humboldt, on November 14, 1992, at the age of 117 years, 66 days. She had been the oldest person ever from the United States after surpassing the age of Easter Wiggins on October 16, 1991. Welford would continue to hold this distinction until November 30, 1997, when Sarah Knauss lived past her final age. Her parents were Charles Woodruff Bidwell and Alice Beach Nobel. was an American supercentenarian. She was born to a former slave and married a
tenant farmer. Barnes died on January 19, 1998, in
Johnston County, North Carolina, of
gangrene. Her exact year of birth has been disputed. Though the year 1882 is written in her family bible, her
marriage license claims that she was born in 1880. Domingues was born in
Cape Verde. Domingues's
Italian father was a harbor pilot by profession, and her mother was
Portuguese by ethnicity. She married in 1907, and moved to the
United States that year.
Charlotte Benkner Charlotte Benkner (née
Enterlein; November 16, 1889 – May 14, 2004) After her 1908 marriage to Karl Benkner, she moved west, living in
Pennsylvania and
Ohio, before retiring to
Arizona. Already a supercentenarian and the oldest person in Arizona, Benkner returned to Ohio to live in
North Lima with her sister Tillie O'Hare, her youngest sibling. Tillie died in January 2004, just three weeks shy of becoming a
centenarian. Throughout his life, he worked as a railroad worker and a
beekeeper, before retiring to pursue gardening and canning produce. At the age of 95, he
surfed for the first time in
Hawaii, while on his way back to the U.S. from visiting his grandson in Japan. He was recognized by
Guinness World Records as the oldest driver in the world at the age of 104, and he continued driving until age 108. At 109, he moved to the
Syracuse area in
New York State. A lifelong fan of the
Boston Red Sox, he was alive to see both their
1918 and
2004 World Series victories. She graduated from
Drake University in the Class of 1912 and went on to work as a
Latin teacher before she married ophthalmologist Harry Johnston; at the time of her death, she was the university's oldest living graduate. At age 98, Johnston moved from Iowa to Ohio in order to live with her daughter and son-in-law. Even after turning 110, she continued to be in good health, alert and engaging in conversations, and was still able to walk up steps. The university's Vice President for Institutional Advancement, John Willey, nominated her for an honorary degree. was thought to be the oldest living person in the United States from December 2004 until the subsequent verification of
Elizabeth Bolden. Both were born in the rural South, where they lived less than 100 miles apart. Wilson was the daughter of freed slaves, Solomon and Delia Rutherford. In April 2005, Wilson moved into a new home funded by donations, in
New Albany. She celebrated her 115th birthday in September 2005, and died on February 13, 2006, aged 115 years, 153 days. was an American supercentenarian and the joint second-oldest living man in the world, together with Englishman
Henry Allingham, also born on June 6, 1896, until Francis's death aged 112 years and 204 days. He was also the oldest living man in the United States, following the death of then 111-year-old
Antonio Pierro on February 8, 2007. Francis was from
New Orleans, Louisiana, but after 1949 lived in
Sacramento, California, where a local newspaper published a poem that Francis enjoyed reciting to friends and the public throughout his life. He credited his longevity to nature, and enjoyed a rich diet of pork, eggs, milk and lard. He gave up smoking cigars at the age of 75. Francis attempted to join the army in World War I, but was rejected for service in 1918 as being too short and small (he weighed only about ). Despite this, he later was a boxer before becoming a barber and then a chauffeur. was an
American Jewish supercentenarian, born in
New York City to Isaac and Kate Jacobson, who fled from the
Russian Empire, and the oldest verified Jewish person in history from November 6, 2012, 12 weeks after turning 113, when she broke fellow German-born American
Adelheid Kirschbaum's record of 113 years and 83 days, through until August 27, 2014, when fellow Russian-born American
Goldie Steinberg (born October 30, 1900), who was the oldest living Jewish person after her death, broke her record. Kozak died of a
heart attack at a hospital in
Brooklyn,
New York City, early in the morning of June 11, 2013, barely around a quarter of a day before the oldest living person, 116-year-old Japaneseman
Jiroemon Kimura (who died 2:08 a.m. the night of June 12, which is 1:08 p.m. the afternoon of June 11
EDT).
Bernice Madigan Bernice Madigan (née
Emerson; July 24, 1899 – January 3, 2015) was born in
West Springfield,
Massachusetts, and moved to Cheshire when she was six. In 1918, after graduating from Adams High School, she responded to government
drives to recruit women into employment during WWI, and moved to
Washington, D.C. She married Paul Madigan (d. 1976) in 1925; and was interviewed and filmed by the Center for Aging at the
University of Chicago and the
ABC World News. She joined social media, with profiles on
Facebook and
Twitter. Madigan died in her sleep at the age of 115 years and 163 days on January 3, 2015. On July 4, 2014 (Weaver's 116th birthday), the mayor of Camden declared July 4 to be "Gertrude Day" in Weaver's honor. She died on April 6, 2015, of complications. ==Notes==