Sarah Knauss
Sarah Knauss | |
|---|---|
 Sarah Knauss aged 17 in 1897 | |
| Born | Sarah DeRemer Clark September 24, 1880 Hollywood, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | December 30, 1999 (aged 119 years, 97 days)[a][1] Allentown, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Other names | Sadie |
| Occupation(s) | Former manager, homemaker |
| Title | America's oldest person ever |
| Spouse |
Abraham Lincoln Knauss
(m. 1901–1965) |
| Children | 1[2] |
Sarah DeRemer Knauss (née Clark; September 24, 1880 – December 30, 1999)[3] was an American supercentenarian, and the world's oldest living person between the death of Canadian woman Marie-Louise Meilleur on April 16, 1998,[4] and her own death from natural causes aged 119 years, 97 days. Knauss is the oldest American ever and the third-oldest person in history, behind Jeanne Calment and Kane Tanaka.
She, also along with Danish-born American man Christian Mortensen, who died just 9 days after Meilleur, were the last two living people born before 1884. During the last 40 days of her life, she was also the last living person born before 1885.
Biography
[change | change source]Knauss was born as Sarah DeRemer Clark on September 24, 1880, as the third of seven children in Hollywood, Pennsylvania, US. Her family then later moved to South Bethlehem, Pennyslavia.
Her only child, Kathryn, was born in 1903 and died in 2005, aged 101. After 64 years of marriage, her husband died in 1965 at the age of 86.[5]
Knauss was a very short woman. She was 4 feet 7 inches (1.40 metres) tall.[5]
At the age of 104, she moved in with her daughter, Kathryn Knauss Sullivan. At the age of 106, she was no longer able to walk and got about via wheelchair. She remained in relatively good health well into her 119th year, except for being almost totally deaf.[5]
Death
[change | change source]On December 30, 1999, Knauss died from natural causes in her sleep at around 3:00 p.m., while sitting in the chair in her room.[5] She died 2 days before the year 2000 started. With her death, British woman Eva Morris become the oldest living person in the world.[4]
Related pages
[change | change source]Notes
[change | change source]- ↑ One source incorrectly reports her date of death as December 31, 1999.
References
[change | change source]- ↑ Merrill, Gary F. (February 3, 2015). Our Aging Bodies. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 9780813575261. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
- ↑ Devlin, Ron (January 1, 2000). "Sarah's Century". The Morning Call. Archived from the original on August 24, 2018. Retrieved April 17, 2017.
- ↑ "Sarah Knauss, world's oldest person, dies at 119 | Online Athens". Archived from the original on 2017-10-05. Retrieved 2017-02-14.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Table C - World's Oldest Person (WOP) Titleholders Since 1955 Gerontology Research Group
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Photo Gallery for Supercentenarians born in the year 1880, as of August 17, 2019. Gerontology Research Group
| Preceded by Marie-Louise Meilleur |
Oldest Recognized Living Person[broken anchor] April 16, 1998 – December 30, 1999 |
Succeeded by Eva Morris |