World's oldest known person dies at age 114

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Emma Faust Tillman, who became the world's oldest known living person two weeks ago, died at a nursing home. She was 114. Tillman, the daughter of former slaves, died Sunday night, said Karen Chadderton, administrator of Riverside Health and Rehabilitation Center. "She went peacefully," Chadderton said Monday. "She was a wonderful woman." Chadderton said several family members were with Tillman when she died. Tillman was born during the administration of President Benjamin Harrison. Her reign as the world's oldest person was short-lived; she assumed the title Jan. 14 with the death of 115-year-old Emiliano Mercado del Toro of Puerto Rico, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Tillman, who lived independently until she was 110 years old, was deeply religious since childhood and always attributed her longevity to God's will, friends and family members said. Tillman's great-nephew, former Hartford fire chief John B. Stewart Jr., has said she never smoked, never drank, did not need glasses and only reluctantly agreed to wear a hearing aid.