Edna Parker, the world's oldest person, has died at the age of 115 in a US nursing home.
UCLA gerontologist Dr Stephen Coles said Parker's great-nephew notified him that Parker died on Wednesday at a nursing home in Shelbyville, Indiana.
She was 115 years and 220 days old, said Robert Young, a senior consultant for gerontology for Guinness World Records.
Parker was born on April 20, 1893, in Indiana and had been recognised 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 on September 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.
"We don't know why she's lived so long," Don Parker said before his grandmother's 115th birthday. "But she's never been a worrier and she's always been a thin person, so maybe that has something to do with it."
Parker taught in a two-room school for several years until she wed her childhood sweetheart and neighbour in 1913. The same year, she graduated from Franklin College with a teaching certificate.
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 Sandy Allen, whom Guinness recognised as the world's tallest woman until her death in August.
World's oldest person dies
Originally Posted by jerkzz
rip to u soon.
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