Older than...

December 11, 2006 3:02 PM

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Bolden has died at the age of 116. I can only imagine the things that she must have lived & experienced first hand.
posted by drstein (28 comments total)

Yeah, I read this wrong as well.
posted by piratebowling at 3:13 PM on December 11, 2006

I can only imagine the things that she must have lived & experienced first hand.

&c. &c. FORTY WHACKS &c.
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:15 PM on December 11, 2006

so it goes.
posted by brevator at 3:16 PM on December 11, 2006

I misread that too. Which got me to thinking...

Lizzie Andrew Borden (July 19, 1860 – June 1, 1927) was a New England spinster and a central figure in the case surrounding the brutal axe double-murder of her father and stepmother on a sweltering day, August 4, 1892 ...

So Lizzie Bolden was 2 years old when Lizzie Borden ( you know she did it ) took an axe...
posted by R. Mutt at 3:32 PM on December 11, 2006

Maybe this famous Bolden (whose biographical details are very sketchy) was some kind of relation?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:38 PM on December 11, 2006

Family members said this year that Bolden had 40 grandchildren, 75 great-grandchildren, 150 great-great-grandchildren, 220 great-great-great grandchildren and 75 great-great-great-great grandchildren

560 grandkids total (!!)

She was 25 when WWI started.
39 when the depression hit (1929).
51 when the U.S. entered WWII (1941).
71 when the first human orbited the earth (1961?).
79 when humans walked on the moon.
102 when Clinton took office.


Wow
.
posted by Skygazer at 3:43 PM on December 11, 2006 [1 favorite]

I can only imagine the things that she must have lived & experienced first hand.

Oh. Jell-O again. Fucking happy day.
posted by hal9k at 4:14 PM on December 11, 2006

Am I a jerk if I ask who has taken her spot?
posted by pokermonk at 4:25 PM on December 11, 2006

.
posted by brundlefly at 4:28 PM on December 11, 2006

Heavy on the snark tonight, eh, MeFi? Get back to me when you have enough descendants to see your genes survive nuclear winter.

.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 4:40 PM on December 11, 2006

I've got some jeans that might survive nuclear winter.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:50 PM on December 11, 2006

When you put it like that, Skygazer, it makes it look like we've been really slacking off this past forty years. We can put a man on the moon but we can't do anything else really great? Bah, the human raced peaked early.
posted by five fresh fish at 5:03 PM on December 11, 2006

We can put a man on the moon but we can't do anything else really great?

Ahem.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:17 PM on December 11, 2006

My great-great grandmother got hit by a car three times. She simply did not understand how to cross the street because she was well into adulthood and living in a very rural area (southern Indiana) before she even saw her first automobile, older still before she ever rode in one (in the back, with her eyes closed or a lace hankie clutched over her eyes).

When she got too old to take care of herself she moved into town to live with relatives. Being fiercely independent, she still wanted to get around. Though the town was very small it still had moved into the 20th century, though she was very much a reminant of the 19th until her death in 1976.

Incidentally, she never once voted Republican and often refered to Lincoln (from nearby) as one of "those drunkard Lincolns."
posted by Pollomacho at 5:32 PM on December 11, 2006

40 grandchildren, 75 great-grandchildren, 150 great-great-grandchildren, 220 great-great-great grandchildren and 75 great-great-great-great grandchildren

Christ, that's a lot of Old Navy gift cards.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 6:06 PM on December 11, 2006

Yes, SI but think of all the "Jean Nate" she would get in return!
posted by R. Mutt at 6:15 PM on December 11, 2006

I can only imagine the things that she must have lived & experienced first hand.

My grandfather died at 93 years old in 1982. He saw a lot of "firsts." My favorite story of his is about the first time he saw a car.

He was sitting on the porch of his house in Kentucky, with his cousin. They watched a cloud of dust come down the road, and it sounded like nothing they ever heard. It was moving pretty slowly. They watched it without saying a word as the auto passed the porch, and disappeared slowly into the distance.

After the car was gone, my grandfather turned to his cousin and said, "Someone is gonna get killed on one of those things."

Hey, he was right!
posted by The Deej at 9:40 PM on December 11, 2006

pokermonk: "Am I a jerk if I ask who has taken her spot?"

Emiliano Mercado del Toro of Puerto Rico. He was born on August 21, 1891 (which makes him just over 115 years old). He's the first male to hold the "oldest living person" title since (the disputed) Shigechiyo Izumi in 1986 — 16 women have held the title since then. The second oldest living man, Thomas Nelson Sr., is almost four years younger. If Emiliano lives until May, he'll become the oldest (undisputed) man in history, but he'll then still have a few years to beat Izumi's claim.
posted by Plutor at 5:31 AM on December 12, 2006

he'll become the oldest (undisputed) man in history,
That's sad, to get to be that old and still have to prove you're a man.

*sobs into lace hankie*
posted by Floydd at 6:16 AM on December 12, 2006

That's sad, to get to be that old and still have to prove you're a man.

I thought that was a standard response to aging. Quick — someone buy Mr. del Toro a red sports car and a leather jacket!
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:20 AM on December 12, 2006

I had the privilege a decade or so ago to spend some time with a woman who died when she was 96 of a stroke, but had maintained clarity right until the end. She had great stories about going "downtown" in Manhattan during Prohibition to "score" alcohol for her mid-town employers. First-hand accounts of speakeasy joints were enthralling.

Anyway, of course I asked her what the coolest thing was she'd seen happen during her life, what had the biggest impact. She said: "Radio". I asked her then was it not TV? She told me no, TV was just "Radio with pictures".
posted by meehawl at 6:28 AM on December 12, 2006

FFF: When you put it like that, Skygazer, it makes it look like we've been really slacking off this past forty years.

Well, I don't think it was too big on her radar, but she was

84 when the Ramones formed and 106 when they broke up ten years ago.

Actually, now that I think about it, more people were born and died within the span of her lifetime, than within the lifespan of any other person who's ever lived. Morbid, but true...
posted by Skygazer at 9:09 AM on December 12, 2006

I always find it interesting what the really ancient crowd looks back on as important or earth-shattering. I remember a segment NPR did on the eve of the millennium profiling cenetarians. There was one lady, an activist for the Sierra Club in CA at 102, and they asked her what the biggest change she'd see in her lifetime. she paused, laughed and said simply, "Women's bathing suits." Jimi Hendrix's 101 year old grandmother said in an interview, "I've seen slavery and I've seen James (aka Jimi) play, that about covers it." My own grandmother at 96 remembered me as "the one with the pony-tail" and always remarked on the change in men's hairstyles.

So yeah, it's all a matter of perspective, really. and when your perspective is that long, it's bound to be a little warped.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 9:25 AM on December 12, 2006

Must be almost 20 years ago, but I was working for a construction company while in college, and I was making a delivery of metal debris to the local recycler and I saw these three really old black men bringing aluminum cans in at the same time. One of the men, the oldest it seemed, was very feeble and didnt do much more than sit on the bumper and occasionally direct the others.

After they left, the operator of the recycling place told me that they were regulars. They were, in order of age, the great grandson and grandson of the eldest, who they claimed was 116 years old. I worked it out in my head after, and if true, the old man was born during the Civil War Reconstruction and lived through half of our country's history.

Still trying to wrap my brain around that tapestry of experience.
posted by elendil71 at 9:40 AM on December 12, 2006

I'm confused, why isn't Pearl Gartrell (born April 1888) the oldest living person? Does Guiness have stringent requirements regarding documentation, and therefore somebody born in 1875 could still be out there, but we'll never know because they don't have a birth certificate or other proof of age?
posted by etoile at 10:58 AM on December 12, 2006

Er, I should add - does Guinness have those requirements, and Gartrell does not meet them? Or has she died since then?
posted by etoile at 11:00 AM on December 12, 2006

Pearl Gartrell has no records to support her claim. Can't just take her word for it. Other people around the world claim to be older than 120. See here.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 1:08 PM on December 12, 2006

My great-grandmother died 4 years ago, aged 109. I remember at her funeral my dad mentioned that she'd been 10 when the Wright brothers made their first flight.
Rather oddly, there was another lady who lived about 100 metres down the road from my great grandmother who'd died a few months earlier also aged 109. Maybe it's more common than I'd realised, or something they'd put in the water?!
posted by kumonoi at 3:26 PM on December 12, 2006