Free Republic

SHELBYVILLE, Ind. - Edna Parker, who once taught in a two-room schoolhouse and became the world's oldest person more than a year ago, has died at age 115. UCLA gerontologist Dr. Stephen Coles said Parker's great nephew notified him that Parker passed away Wednesday at a nursing home in Shelbyville. She was 115 years, 220 days old, said Robert Young, a senior consultant for gerontology for Guinness World Records. Parker was born April 20, 1893 in central Indiana's Morgan County and had been recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest person since the Aug. 14, 2007, death in...

Henry Allingham, who was born in London on 6 June 1896, is also the last surviving original member of the Royal Air Force - formed 90 years ago... Now partially deaf and almost blind, Mr Allingham, who was born in Clapham, London, now lives at St Dunstan's home for blind ex-servicemen, in Ovingdean. His life has spanned six monarchs and has taken in 21 prime ministers. Mr Allingham is the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland in 1916, and also fought at the Somme and Ypres where he was bombed and shelled. He joined the Royal Air Force when...

Edna Parker was alert and eager to party on Friday morning as family, friends, dignitaries and their representatives gathered at Heritage House Convalescent Center to honor Shelbyville's own certified oldest person in the world as she turns 115 years old on Sunday. Shelbyville Mayor Scott Furgeson announced at the party that the city has ordered signs that will promote Shelbyville as the "Home of Edna Parker, the world's oldest person." "It is a great honor to have Edna and her great family in Shelbyville," Furgeson said. Dressed in a new blue and white polka dot dress with a crisp, white...

In the courtyard of a low-slung convalescent hospital west of USC, Gertrude Baines was inaugurated Sunday into one of the world's most exclusive sororities. She turned 114 years old. There was cake. Singing. Proclamations. Superlatives. Because only two other people in the world are 114. There is no one older. A former college maid with a fondness for hats, bacon and Scripture, Baines is the third-oldest person on Earth, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which validates claims of extreme old age. A year ago she was No. 9. It's not hard to figure out what happened in the interim.

Marion Bigelow Higgins, recognized as the oldest person in California, has died of congestive heart failure at her home in Leisure World. She was 112. Higgins was recognized as the oldest person in California, the sixth oldest in the United States and the 11th oldest in the world, according to an Orange County Register report on Friday. Officials with the state Department of Aging could not immediately verify Friday whether she was California's oldest person. Funeral arrangements for Higgins, who died Thursday, were pending, relatives said. "She finally began to show her age in recent months after 112 years of...