Arkansas woman dies at 116 days after being declared the world's oldest person

Michael Winter | USA TODAY

Gertrude Weaver, the world's oldest person for just five days, died Monday in Arkansas. She was 116.

Weaver, who was born July 4, 1898, to sharecroppers near the Texas border, died at 10:12 a.m. at the Silver Oaks Health and Rehabilitation in Camden, a spokeswoman told KTHV-TV in Little Rock.

She was crowned the oldest just Wednesday after the death of Misao Okawa in Japan, who was 117.

Weaver had enjoyed manicures, Bible study and "wheelchair dancing," which she told Time magazine she did three times a week.

She credited her longevity in great part to kindness. "Treat people right and be nice to other people the way you want them to be nice to you," she said.

Michigan's Jeralean Talley is now the reigning centenarian of the world, followed closely by Susannah Mushatt Jones of New York City and Emma Morano of Italy. All three are 115.

Talley, who lives in the Detroit suburb of Inkster, will turn 116 on May 23; Jones, of Brooklyn, on July 6; and Morano on Nov. 29.

One of 11 children, Georgia-born Talley, whose last name was then Kurtz, picked cotton and peanuts before moving north to Inkster seeking a better life during the Great Depression. She was married for 52 years until her husband, Alfred Talley, died in 1988 at age 95.

She has three grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren.

Talley's keys to longevity? Staying active and living by the Golden Rule.

She only recently gave up playing slot machines at casinos, bowled until she was 104, and even mowed her own lawn at 105. She still goes fishing every year with a friend and his son. Two years ago, she caught seven catfish.

"She's fun," her 23-year-old great-great-granddaughter Aerial Holloway told the Detroit Free Press. "She's great to be around. And she likes to eat."

Contributing: Matthew Diebel.