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Hester Ford, born in 1904, moved to Charlotte in the 1950s. Ford has seen a lot in her lifetime, more than anyone in the United States. She had been known as the oldest living American at 116 years old. Ford died Saturday, according to her great-granddaughter. “Her light shined beyond her local area and she lived beyond a century with memories containing real-life experience of over 100 years,” her great-granddaughter Tanisha Patterson-Powe said. “She not only represented the advancement of our family but of the Black African American race and culture in our country. She was a reminder of how...

A woman purported to be the oldest living person ever at 128 says she hasn't lived a single happy day in her life and her longevity is "a punishment". The Russian government claims Koku Istambulova is the world's oldest person. But she has bluntly said her longevity "was God's will" and she "did nothing to make it happen". While some people chalk it up to a healthy or active lifestyle, "tired" Koku said: "I have no idea how I lived until now." Due to turn 129 in two weeks, she added: “I have not had a single happy day in...

East Hartford Woman Is 114 Years Old POSTED: 5:38 pm EST January 19, 2007 Emma Faust Tillman, who was born on Nov. 22, 1892, became the oldest validated female "supercentenarian" in the world when 115-year-old Julie Winnifred Bertrand of Montreal, Canada, died in her sleep early Thursday. Tillman is now the second-oldest known person in the world behind 115-year-old Emiliano Mercado del Toro of Puerto Rico, born August 21, 1891. They are among many validated "supercentenarians" on a list maintained by the Gerontology Research Group in Los Angeles and other organizations. Officials at East Hartford's Riverside Health and Rehabilitation Center,...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - George Johnson, considered California's oldest living person at 112 and the state's last surviving World War I veteran, had experts shaking their heads over his junk food diet. "He had terrible bad habits. He had a diet largely of sausages and waffles," Dr. L. Stephen Coles, founder