Charlotte Benkner was named as the ''World''s Oldest Person'' by Guiness Book of Records in 2003 with the death of Mitoyo Kawate of Japan. At the time of death, Benkner was age 114 years and 180 days.
Benkner was born in Leipzig, Germany, and emigrated to the U.S. At the age of six, she moved to New York with her family as a child. She grew up in Peekskill, New York, where her father ran a hotel. As a young woman, one of the thrills of her life was greeting President Theodore Roosevelt while she was traveling with a group of women on a ferry in New York Harbor.
In 1908, she married Karl Benkner, a civil engineer, and the couple moved to Pittsburgh and then to Youngstown, where he was a professor at Youngstown State University. He died in 1967. The couple had no children.
At the age of 110, Benkner moved from Arizona to an assisted living facility in Ohio, where she lived with her only remaining sibling, Matilda ''Tillie'' O''Hare, who died just weeks before her 100th birthday. She became the oldest recognized person in the United States when 114-year-old Elena Slough died in October 2003.
Benkner never smoked or drank hard liquor and was always fairly active. When asked the secret to a long life, she replied:'' There is no secret. I just live each day the way the Lord gives it to me.''
Benkner held the title of the oldest person until the sufficient documentation was found to validate the age of Ramona Trinidad Iglesias-Jordan of Puerto Rico in March 2004.
Ref: www.articles.latimes.com
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