Oldest person in world celebrates her 115th birthday
Summary of story from AJC, August, 25th, 2011
Besse Cooper celebrated her 115th birthday on Friday in Monroe, Georgia. She has been verified as the world’s oldest person by the Gerontology Research Group and the Guinness Book of World Records.
Cooper has strangely won and lost the title in the past year according to her son Sidney, 76, when Guinness discovered Maria Gomes Valentin of Brazil, 48 days her senior. But since Valentin died, Cooper again became the world’s oldest person.
Cooper was born in Tennessee and moved to Georgia during World War I to find employment as a teacher. She married husband Luther in 1924.
They had four children. She now has 12 grandchildren and more than a dozen great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. Luther died in 1963.
Sidney Cooper claims the secret to his mother’s longevity is her attitude to life: “She never worried. She just never was a worrier”.
According to his mother however, the reason she has lived to such an old age is because she minds her own business and doesn’t eat junk food.
Oh dear, if worrying is such a life-shortener I reckon my remaining days must be numbered! How fantastic though, to have lived more than a century.