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, Ga., said Sara Rearden of Burtonsville, Md., and Janie Ruth Osborne of Edgefield.
They said their mother broke her hip after a fall about three weeks ago. 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.”
