Woman, oldest living US citizen, dies at 114

A 114-year-old South Carolina woman who was the oldest living U.S. citizen has died, two of her daughters said Saturday.

Mamie Rearden of Edgefield, who held the title as the country‘s oldest person for about two weeks, died Wednesday at a hospital in Augusta, Georgia, said Sara Rearden of Burtonsville, Maryland, and Janie Ruth Osborne of Edgefield. They said their mother broke her hip after a fall about three weeks ago.

The Gerontology Research Group, which verifies age information for Guinness World Records, listed Mamie Rearden as the oldest living American after last month’s passing of 115-year-old Dina Manfredini of Iowa. Rearden‘s Sept. 7, 1898, birth was recorded in the 1900 U.S. Census, the group’s Robert Young said.

Rearden was more than a year younger than the world‘s oldest person, 115-year-old Jiroemon Kimura of Japan.

``My mom was not president of the bank or anything, but she was very instrumental in raising a family and being a community person,’‘ said Sara Rearden, her youngest child. ``Everybody can’t go be president of a bank or president of a college, but we feel just as proud of her in her role as housewife and particularly as mother and homemaker.‘’

Mamie Rearden, who was married to her husband Oacy for 59 years until his death in 1979, raised 11 children, 10 of whom survive, Sara Rearden said. She lived in the family homestead with a son and a daughter on land that had been in the family since her father‘s accumulation of acreage made him one of the area’s largest black landowners.

Her father sent her off to earn a teaching certificate at Bettis Academy on the far side of the county, and she would spend an entire day on a loaded wagon to reach the school along dirt roads, her daughter said. She taught for several years until becoming pregnant with her third child.

In the mid-1960s at age 65, when some settled into retirement, she learned to drive a car for the first time and started volunteering for an Edgefield County program that had her driving to the end of remote rural roads to find children whose parents were keeping them home from school, Sara Rearden said.

Mamie Rearden always counseled that her children should treat others as they wanted to be treated and that included never gossiping or speaking ill of others. When asked about a preacher‘s uninspiring sermon, her daughter recalled her mother saying: ```Well, it came from the Bible.’ She never would bad-mouth them.‘’ (AP)





<관련 한글 기사> 공식 최고령 여성 몇 세에 사망?



공식적으로 세계에서 가장 나이가 많은 여성이 116세에 사망했다.

에지필드의 마미 레아덴 (114)씨는 미국에서 최고령의 나이를 2주간 보유하고 있다가 조지아 오거스타의 한 병원에서 수요일 숨졌다고 두 딸이 밝혔다. 그들은 어머니가 3주전에 넘어져 엉덩이 뼈가 부러졌다고 말했다.

노인학연구그룹은 레아덴을 미국 아이오와에서 사망한 디나 만프레디니에 이어 가장 오래 생존했던 인물로 등재했다. 레아덴은 1898년 9월 7일 출생한것으로 기록되어 있다.

레아덴은 세계에서 최고령자인 115세 일본인 지로에몬 기무라에보다 한 살 어렸다.

“엄마는 한 은행의 회장은 아니었지만 가정을 꾸리는데 있어 굉장히 중요한 사람이었다,”고 레아덴의 막내딸 사라 레아덴이 말했다. “모두가 총장이나 은행장으로 살 수는 없지만, 그녀는 엄마로서 그리고 주부로서의 역할을 훌륭히 해냈다.”

레아덴은 배우자 오아시와 59년동안 결혼생활을 했으며 11명의 아이들을 길렀다고 사라는 말했다.

레아덴은 아버지의 권유로 베티스 아카데미에서 교사 자격증을 취득했다. 그녀는 세번째 아이를 임신하기 전까지 몇 년간 그곳에서 교사로 활동했다.

1960년대 중반 많은 이들이 은퇴를 하며 노후를 즐길 때 그녀는 처음으로 운전면허자격증을 취득하여 아이들을 학교로 보내지 않는 가정들을 찾아가는 에지필드 카운티 프로그램에서 활동하며 봉사활동을 했다고 사라는 말했다.

레아덴은 자녀들에게 항상 대접받고 싶은 대로 남을 대접하라고 했으며 절대 가십이나 뒷담화를 하지 말라고 조언했다. (코리아헤럴드)