Oldest person you ever knew?

[Shangas]

Hi Audrey,

Be glad that you were at an age where you could appreciate him. Not many people get to do that. My grandmother is now a great-grandmother, but due to her dementia, and my cousins' children still being rather young (oldest is 12, I think, and they live a whole country away!), I don't think they'd appreciate just how special or lucky they are to have a great-grandmother. I never had one, but I consider my grandmother very lucky to be living long enough to have some of her own.

 

[Audrey Horne]

Hi Audrey,

Be glad that you were at an age where you could appreciate him. Not many people get to do that. My grandmother is now a great-grandmother, but due to her dementia, and my cousins' children still being rather young (oldest is 12, I think, and they live a whole country away!), I don't think they'd appreciate just how special or lucky they are to have a great-grandmother. I never had one, but I consider my grandmother very lucky to be living long enough to have some of her own.

I agree, it's a really special thing to have the opportunity for that kind of relationship.

 

[jayem]

Both my great-grandmothers on my dads side of the family (Munno and Nana) lived past 100. My Nana (my grandmothers mom) was born in 1899 and my Munno (my grandfathers mom) was born 1898. They died in 1999 and 1998, respectively. I was close with both of them and really appreciated the stories they used to tell me since I was 11 when they passed.

My mom, back in grade school in the 60s, had a nun as a teacher who survived the Titanic. Whenever she got upset, she would throw a book (Catholic school is more vicious than Roman rule ) and shout 'I SURVIVED THE TITANIC, YOU MUST RESPECT ME!'

 

[Shangas]

Do you happen to know that nun's name? I can check her up on the passenger lists and tell you if she was telling the truth.

 

[Bustercat]

My grandfather-in-law is celebrating his 99th this year. Not the oldest I knew (a great aunt of 103), but cool nonetheless considering how many brushes with death he's had.

 

[Big Man]

My grandmother was 101 when she died (1882-1983). She was a remarkable lady, and was active up until the last. She probably influenced me more than anyone else.

 

[jayem]

Do you happen to know that nun's name? I can check her up on the passenger lists and tell you if she was telling the truth.

I have no idea, and I think it would be especially hard since most nuns change their real names upon entering the convent. If she was lying, it would all but add to her craziness

 

[matei]

The oldest person I knew was my great-grandmother, who lived to the age of 99 years and 6 months.

She stopped drinking when she was 86.

 

[Foofoogal]

I met a lady once that was 109 and amazingly spry. It inspired me to also desire greatly to live to be that old. 109. Not 110 or 108. I l just want to drop dead at 109. I think with science and medicine now it is not impossible.
More are living to be 100 than ever before.
I know a 95 year old fabulous lady who just had her birthday celebration. :eusa_clap

 

[Foofoogal]

and shout 'I SURVIVED THE TITANIC, YOU MUST RESPECT ME!'

jayem, if nothing else it is a hilarious story. lol

 

[vintage_jayhawk]

My great-grandmother passed away when she was 105. I was only about 7, so I don't remember much about her. My dad likes to tell stories about how she used to hide money all over the house. She was very sharp minded, she just had an aversion to banks. Effects of the depression, I suppose [huh] . My dad used to ask her how she managed to save all that money on her measly SS check, and she would say, no matter how much you make, you can always save something. Strong smart lady. Her daughter, my grandma, is still kicking at 95. She still makes family dinner for all 15 of us several times a year. We've tried to offer to bring food and do it potluck style, but she always says, when I can't make my family lunch anymore, we'll just stop having family meals! I hope I get those genes!

 

[Boodles]

My great-grannie Lee lived to 101, she passed in '62 (I think it was) She was nearly blind for more than the last 10 years of her life. Two of her grandchildren, my aunts, lived to 95 with no vision problems at all.

A bit like the man Mr Finch describes, I knew a man named Garly Davidson whose family had lived for generations on the land of the Davidson Plantation (Namesake of Davidson College and Davidson Township). Some time in the past his ancestors were first, slaves on the plantation, then sharecroppers, then in the years I knew Mr. Garly he just lived on Davidson land on McAlpine Creek. People claimed Garly to be 97 when he passed on. For the last 10 years I knew him he answered the question of age with "purt near a hunert, I reckon." R.I.P. Mr Davidson (By the way sir, I still cannot stand to thread a cricket on a hook).

 

[Widebrim]

Well, I've met some very interesting older people, I've met Ann Rutherford, she's in her 90s now and stared in Gone With The Wind, Love Meets Andy Hardy and also Orchestra Wives. I've talked with her on two accounts, what a neat lady she is.

You and I have something in common, Rob. I saw Miss Rutherford about four months ago at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, where one of her films with Tom Conway was playing. Still lucid and with a sparkle in her eye.

 

[Widebrim]

Mr. King, who was still alive when I was in high school, and who was one of my father's oldest and best oil customers, was a U.S. soldier who fought in Cuba during the Spanish American War.

AF

I've got a similar story. First, though, the second oldest person I've "known." In 1981, I believe, at the Glendale Days of Verdugo Parade, I met Dora Verdugo (Bullock). She was the great grand-daughter of Cpl. Jose' Maria Verdugo, a veteran of the Spanish Army whose land holdings are now basically the city of Glendale. She was 99 years old at the time, and was the grandmother of actress Elena Verdugo. From what I recall, she seemed sharp, although I can't recall what she said to me (and she likely spoke Spanish as a first language). Mrs. Verdugo Bullock died at age 103.

The oldest person that I ever knew, similar to your father's customer, a 103 year old veteran of the Spanish American War. Not only that, he was officially the last American survivor of the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba, and of the entire Cuban Campaign. His name was Ralph Waldo Taylor, and as a 16 year young Soldier, had served with the 71st New York Volunteer Infantry. I flew to his retirement "villa" in Florida to interview him in 1984; he lived with his third wife, and was still able to recount in detail in detail his time in the war. He recalled when his comanding officer had an argument with Teddy Roosevelt over who was going to get a particular ship (Teddy won), how it felt to be in the Battle of San Juan Hill, as well as how he (a White) was separated from his company, only to be befriended by a group of Black Soldiers. My story on his experiences was published in Soldier Magazine in 1986, just a few months before Mr. Taylor passed away.

 

[GeniusInTheLamp]

I actually met my great-great-grandmother when I was young. The last time I saw her was in 1979, when she was 97; she lived next door to my Aunt Kathleen (her daughter) and Uncle Virgil. She died two years later, just short of her 99th birthday. She had a sister, an uncle, and a cousin who all made it to 100, and her mother lived to be 97 (long enough to have a 5-generation photo taken with my mother).

I also briefly corresponded with a distant cousin who wrote a history of my Spencer relatives; she turns 100 next year, and her husband is 102. They've been married for 77 years.

 

[Shangas]

77 years!?

Now that's impressive.

...what's the 75th anniversary of a marriage called?

 

[Kitty_Sheridan]

Probably either the nuns at School, Mother Philomena was well over a hundred and a gentleman called 'Mr Gillette' who was a neighbour and had fought in WW1. At age about 98 he manhandled a beautiful old Edwardian wardrobe outside and took an axe to it. I went running over and I said 'I wish you'd told me, I'd have bought it off you sir!' he then said 'well the mirror is still intact, would you like it? So I have it still.
I wish I'd asked him more about the Great War, he was very chatty about it.

One thing I saw recently, when in a local big city was a funeral procession and I was always taught to lower ones head when a cortege passed, but I saw a lovely old gent in a trilby who paused, took off his hat and pressed it to his chest and lowered his head. what a lovely old manner....others stared at the cortege. (which if you've ever been in a funeral car you'll know is both upsetting and infuriating...anyhoofftopic: )

 

[Edward]

The oldest person I ever knew was my great grandfather - my maternal grandmother's father. Quite a character. Born in 1889, died June 1986 (not the first family death I remember, but the first one where I was actually taken in to the funeral.... that said, little brother and I were probably kept out of Great Aunt Molly's funeral a few years before that as it was open coffin - very unusual in my experience). He was 97. In the early 1900s, he won half a dozen or more medals for long distance running - these were given to me after he died, and I still have them somewhere (I keep meaning to find them and have them framed - they're all engraved with his name and the years, which are, if memory serves, 1903 to about 1906). In 1912, he signed the Ulster Solemn League & Covenant (had he lived long enough, I'm sure he and I would have had some interesting "debates" about politics, lol). During the Great War, I know he served in some sort of Home Guard capacity, as a lookout on the coast.... that's all I know. Maybe he also did something similiar in WW2? Not sure, and I've not seen records, I just half half-remembered family stories. I'm sure he was a resourceful man.... it was in his blood. an uncle of his, he told us, was among a group of three men who were once lost at sea in a lifeboat for three days after their ship sank, during which time they captured, killed and ate - raw - a seagull. No military service (actually, the only record of that that I'm aware of in my family was a Great, Great Uncle who, at the age of 14, doctored his birth certificate along with his best friend, and they ran away to join up to fight the bad Kaiser. A year later, at fifteen years old, my GGU saw his best mate have his head blown clean off, standing beside him in a trench at the Somme...). Great Granda McCaw was, to my knowledge, the first in my mother's side of the family to go to University. Back in the 1910s, long before students grants were invented, a relative funded him through medical school. He was a brilliant mind, and graduated as a medical doctor. Unfortunately, as he fainted at the sight of blood he was never able to practice. He ended up working as a postman - initially a stop gap, but he stayed with it. As well as delivering post, he used to see to local people's ailments, people he knew on his rounds and who were too poor to be able to afford medical care (there was, of course, nothing really provided for them prior to the advent of the NHS in 1948). It is also believed that many times he actually paid for medicines etc that these people required but could not afford. Funny how life works out like that. Actually, he kept up with medical knowledge and devlopments throught his life - even in those last few months in the hospital, he was still as sharp as a tack and amazed all the doctors by being able to fully discuss in medical terms the nature of his illness, treatment, his medication... Quite something.

He would certainly have made it to well over a hundred, but for the fact that my great grandmother died a few months before I as born, in 1974. Really, he never fully got over her death - when he died, he still had her shoes under the bed, and somewhere he also had a hairbrush with her hair still in it. When Spot, who had been her cat, died in about 1984, I think he felt a real sense of losing a significant link with her, and he started to go downhill from there. I do wish I'd been a bit older when he went, as I'm sure I never really fully appreciated him being around.... The oldest person I knew who I was old enough to appreciate, probably, was my paternal grandmother, who died in 2005 from a particularly vicious cancerous tumour in her neck. 86, born in 1919. I learned so much from her as a person, including a lot of things I call to mind all the time now, about people in general, how to be the bigger person, all that. I dearly wish my paternal grandfather had survived as long - he died when I was only five, little brother doesn't remember him at all. Looking at photos now of him back in the 30s through fifties, he was a sharp dresser. I'd love to have had the chance to discuss things with him, not least a photo from a driving licence of his dad has now. Taken in the 30s, it's a full length shot of him in a sharp blazer, and what appear to be white (or at least very light hued), wide leg trousers. Really sharp stuff. Not seen a photo of him in a brimmed hat that I'm aware of, though I do remember him being a flatcap guy.

The oldest person I knew was my great-grandmother, who lived to the age of 99 years and 6 months.

She stopped drinking when she was 86.

Heh... reminds me of that French lady that was the oldest living person til she died a year or two ago, at about, what was it, 113 or something? I remember her being on the news when she hit one of her big birthdays - she'd recorded a rap album in her 90s, I believe... the thing I remember most though was her saying that she'd given up smoking in her mid 80s, only because she couldn't see well enoughh to light up anymore. lol

 

[Edward]

77 years!?

Now that's impressive.

...what's the 75th anniversary of a marriage called?

do enough of them last that long for there to have evolved a common term??

One thing I saw recently, when in a local big city was a funeral procession and I was always taught to lower ones head when a cortege passed, but I saw a lovely old gent in a trilby who paused, took off his hat and pressed it to his chest and lowered his head. what a lovely old manner....others stared at the cortege. (which if you've ever been in a funeral car you'll know is both upsetting and infuriating...anyhoofftopic: )

I remember being taught that, yeah - remove headwear, bow head.... Then of course my Roman Catholic friends of the more devout persuasion would also cross themselves as the hearse passed. Part of a whole heap of Irish funerary tradition which still holds today, at least in the country..... I remember too our blinds being kept down following a family death.

 

[LaMedicine]

...what's the 75th anniversary of a marriage called?

I believe it's Diamond, though some say Diamond for the 60th anniversary.
If 60 is Diamond, then 75th is Platinum.