Oldest person dies at 114 in Connecticut

Emma Faust Tillman, who was born to former slaves and lived to see 21 American presidencies, died at a nursing home just four days after becoming the world's oldest-known living person. She was 114. She may not have held the record very long, but I get the feeling that the title "oldest person" changes hands fairly quickly. To put her amazing life span in historical perspective, she had graduated high school and was married before World War One. The year she got married Babe Ruth was a rookie pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. She lived so long she was a widow for 67 years!

Despite being born only one generation removed from slavery and living through various tumultuous times it sounds like she had a very good life with few regrets.

She was the only black student in her high school when she graduated in 1909 but said she never experienced discrimination there whether she was in class, churning butter for a local family or playing shortstop on a town baseball team.

"In Glastonbury, I didn't know if I was white or black," she said in 1994. "People were just fine, even way back then, to me. They treated me just like everybody else."

The mantle of "oldest living person" passes to a Japanese woman named Yone Minagawa. Let's hope she holds the title a little longer than Mrs. Tillman.