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Weaver, who said the key to longevity was to treat people
kindly, basked in her brief moment in the global spotlight. She
enjoyed being read news articles about being the oldest person
on the planet, said Kathy Langley, the administrator of the
Silver Oaks Health & Rehabilitation Center in Camden, Arkansas.
"She certainly enjoyed it," Langley said, adding, "we are
devastated by her loss."
Langley was born on July 4, 1898, according to the Gerontology
Research Group, which validates ages of the world's
longest-living people. There are only three people alive on the
planet with birth records showing they were born before 1900,
according to the group.
The daughter of sharecroppers, Weaver, was born in Arkansas near
the Texas border and worked as a domestic helper.
The world's oldest known person is now Jeralean Talley, who was
born on May 23, 1899 and will turn 116 next month, according to
the group.
Talley who lives in the Detroit suburb of Inkster, credits her
faith for her longevity.
"It's the Lord. Everything is in his hands," she said in an
interview last year at the one-story brick home she shares with
her daughter, Thelma Holloway.
Talley bowled until she was 104. She never smoked or drank
alcohol and her only surgery was to have her tonsils removed,
she said.
Misao Okawa, a Japanese woman who credited her longevity to
"eating delicious things," had been the world's oldest living
person until her death on April 1 at the age of 117.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Additional
reporting by Rebecca Cook in Michigan; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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