World's Oldest Woman Turns 115: Never Drank, Never Smoked, Loves Crispy Bacon

LOS ANGELES — The world's oldest known living person celebrated her 115th birthday Monday.

Gertrude Baines was honored at Western Convalescent Hospital with music, a letter from the president, and two cakes.

Baines said little during the celebration as friends sang to her and she received a proclamation from Guinness World Records acknowledging her as the world's oldest person.

"Who would take Los Angeles for the place that would have the world's oldest person?" Robert Young, a scientist and senior consultant with Guinness, said later in an interview. "Living that long is like winning the genetic lottery."

Born in 1894 in Shellman, Ga., Baines became the world's oldest living person when a 115-year-old woman, Maria de Jesus, died in Portugal in January.

Baines' physician said she only has two complaints.

"Number one, she doesn't like the bacon. It's not crisp enough," the doctor, Charles Witt Jr., told KCAL-TV. "And the other thing is she fusses about her ... arthritis of her knees. She told me that she owes her longevity to the Lord, that she never did drink, she never did smoke and she never did fool around."

Baines father, born two years before the Civil War in 1863, was likely a slave, Young said. Baines has outlived her entire family. Her only daughter died of typhoid fever when she was a toddler.

Featured on local television newscasts in November when she cast her ballot for Barack Obama for president, Baines said she backed him "because he's for the colored." She said she never thought she would live to see a black man become president.

Baines received a letter from Obama, wishing her a happy birthday.

Baines worked as a maid in Ohio State University dormitories until her retirement, and has lived at the Los Angeles convalescent hospital for more than 10 years.

Since 1986, Young said, the world's oldest person title has been held by a woman for all but 44 days.

Comments

[johnsopinion]

02:42 PM on 04/09/2009

WHAT! Has no one told her that crispy bacon will kill you?

That, and bicycle riders.

And she looks damn good, too!

Congratulations Gerttie. You're my American Idol!

[Tatiana]

10:22 AM on 04/09/2009

In doing the math, she was most likely retired by the time I was born, a lifetime ago.

[mcyina]

08:27 AM on 04/09/2009

Good for her but I dont want to live that long not even close.

[lovelivelaugh14]

11:54 PM on 04/08/2009

How uplifting!

[liminal67]

12:40 PM on 04/08/2009

I always knew bacon was the key to happiness!

http://pitchbendpost.blogspot.com/

[tchoupitoulav]

06:38 AM on 04/08/2009

Wow. I don't want to live to be that old.

[StringOfLights]

02:04 AM on 04/08/2009

It's really amazing that the daughter of a slave who fought for women to have the right to vote could help elect an African American president.

She was around for the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Titanic sinking, the beginning of production of the Model T, the 1918 flu pandemic, two World Wars, the Wright brothers' flight, the discovery of the double helix, men landing on the moon, music from ragtime to rock, and every president since Grover Cleveland...

[MsIrisMG]

01:44 AM on 04/08/2009

I'll bet that for the better part of her life she ate food she grew herself, including the pigs she got her bacon from, rather than industrialized (processed) food. I'd also bet that hers was not a life spent lollygagging in front of a soap opera or talk show, but one in which she worked hard. She's probably aged more since she's been in a nursing home than she did when she was young. I also find it telling, and somewhat gratifying, that this is a beautiful person of color.

[clearthinker2008]

10:30 AM on 04/09/2009

In Ohio?

[AmberGaze]

11:52 PM on 04/07/2009

This is so great! Happy Belated Birthday Mrs.Baines! :)

[petef59]

11:45 PM on 04/07/2009

...but, did her investment portfolio earn anything in that time?

[berryessence]

12:45 AM on 04/08/2009

SHE'S 115 YEARS OLD...LIVING IN A CONVALESCENT HOME AND HAVE NO GENETIC FAMILY

DO YOU REALLY THINK SHE CARES ABOUT AN INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO?

[alphabet99]

11:55 PM on 04/09/2009

so serious.

[sweetwhine]

01:23 PM on 04/10/2009

Stop! LOL!! I think she's cute.

[OtayPanky]

09:29 PM on 04/07/2009

Someone needs to tell her the truth:

Bacon is bad...M'kay?

[LivingInAnObamaNation]

01:06 AM on 04/08/2009

That's why she's lived to be 115! haha

[progressivelady]

09:25 PM on 04/07/2009

Awsome, pretty in pink, happy birthday!

[davidwayneosedach]

09:04 PM on 04/07/2009

Imagine if the future brings people who live to be 200 years old?

[brooklyncitizen]

11:40 PM on 04/07/2009

that's nothing..in biblical times they lived as long as 800 years.
(chuckle)

[Clairvaux]

05:27 PM on 04/07/2009

"World's Oldest Woman Turns 115"

She doesn't look a day over 95!

[LadyR]

04:58 PM on 04/07/2009

That is the most ugly, mean-spirited remark, truthartbeauty. And I happen to like crispy bacon, too, although I don't eat it these days. I suppose harvesting vegetables and fruits isn't slaughter??? My great grandfather lived to be 103, my grandmother 101, and I wish they were here today!

[berryessence]

12:50 AM on 04/08/2009

My great Grandmother was the oldest woman in Birmingham, AL in 1989.

She was 106 years old. She was born before Civil War and was a slave/sharecropper.

She was born in SC at the O'Neil Plantation by Myrtle Beach via route sold to the Seminole Indians of Florida, married to a sharecropper in Mobile, AL...Moved to Birmingham, AL in 1920's.

She also walked for Women Rights to Vote (Women's Suffrage in 1920).

[happycat]

12:58 AM on 04/08/2009

The Civil War began in 1861. It is impossible therefore for your great grandmother to have been 106 years old in 1989 if she was born before the war. Do the math.