Imagine living long enough to hear radio reports that the Titanic sunk, to see the end of both World War I and World War II and to later watch in living color as reality TV star Donald Trump became president.
That is the reality for Elizabeth Francis, who turned 115 on Thursday and who holds the distinction of being the oldest living American.
Francis became the oldest woman — and oldest person overall — in America in February, when the previous title holder, Edie Ceccarelli, died a few weeks after her 116th birthday.
In April, Francis received a plaque recognizing her as the oldest person in the US from LongeviQuest, an organization that tracks the oldest folks in the world.
“She was just shocked to hear she was now the oldest — she couldn’t believe it,” Francis’s eldest granddaughter, Ethel Harrison, 69, told the Washington Post.
Francis and her only daughter, Dorothy Williams, 95, live together and are looked after by caregivers and Harrison.
The nation’s eldest elder’s advice for living a long life is to “speak your mind and don’t hold your tongue.”
While Francis has set a record in the US, she’s only the fourth oldest person on the planet. That distinction goes to Maria Branyas Morena, who — while born in the US — lives in Spain. She is 117 years old, according to LongeviQuest.
Francis was born in 1909 in Louisiana. At age 11, she and her five siblings were split up and sent to live with relatives following the death of her mother
In her teen years, she ran a coffee shop at ABC 13 News in Houston and worked in the shop for two decades.
Harrison said her grandmother never learned to drive — preferring to bus or walk wherever she needed to go — and has lived a simple life focused on her family.
Nowadays she enjoys spending time with her daughter, Dorothy, watching old sitcoms and game shows, according to Harrison.
“I asked her the other night how she feels about turning 115 and she smiled and said, ‘I just thank the good Lord that I’m here,’” Harrison told the paper. “She says she has nothing to complain about, and the rest of our family feels the same way.”
Francis has lived long enough to see telephones evolve from a rare oddity to ubiquitous and powerful pieces of technology. She was 21 years old during the 1929 stock market crash that preceded the Great Depression and was around 36 when World War II ended.
She saw both the rise and the fall of the Soviet Union and missed being alive for the first recorded flight by only six years.
Francis was 19 years old when Wyatt Earp, the gunslinger known for the shootout at the OK Corral, died. She has lived through 20 different presidents, from William Howard Taft to Joe Biden. She missed Teddy Roosevelt’s final months as president by four months.
Ben Meyers, the CEO of LongeviQuest, who provided Francis with a plaque acknowledging her as the oldest person in the US, called her “America’s grandmother.
“Elizabeth Francis is America’s grandmother, beloved by her family and community and admired worldwide,” he told the Washington Post. “Her story is about faith, fortitude and family more than it is about longevity.”
Harrison told the paper that she hopes her grandmother can match Branyas’ record age of 117, but more than that is just happy for every year she gets to buy her grandmother another birthday cake.
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