Jeralean Talley, the world's oldest person, dies at 116

(Image credit: Twitter.com/EricWolfson)

published 19 June 2015

Jeralean Talley, the oldest person in the world, died Wednesday at her home in Inkster, Michigan. She was 116.

Born May 23, 1899, in Montrose, Georgia, Talley moved to Michigan in the 1930s with her husband of 52 years, Alfred Talley, who died in 1988. She enjoyed gardening and fishing in the summer, and bowled until she was 104, the Detroit Free Press reports. She was a "beautiful" and "forgiving" person, her only child, daughter Thelma Holloway, 77, said. A devoted member of the New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church, she credited God for her long life. "There's nothing I can do about it," she once said.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.