People who live a super-long time occupy a special place in our culture. They become nearly freaks, pushing the edge of vampirism, lonely dancers of a mid-50s dance marathon. I wonder if nursing homes give discounts to the Oldest Living Woman in the expectation that someday– Lord only knows when– they’ll get their name in papers the world over. Today we lost a good one, Elena Slough, who only lasted three days in a world that no longer included her daughter.
ELENA SLOUGH, 114 or 115
Was oldest person in the United States
Associated Press
October 6, 2003
TRENTON, N.J. — Elena Slough, documented as the nation’s oldest person, died Sunday at the same nursing home where her daughter died three days before.
Mrs. Slough, who was either 114 or 115, died in her sleep at the Victoria Manor Nursing Home, where she and her 90-year-old daughter, Wanda Allen, had lived, said Judy Moudy, a supervisor at the home in Lower Township.
The Gerontology Research Group said Mrs. Slough was born on July 8, 1889, making her 114. But her son had a 1930 document that listed his mother as being born in 1888, which would make the age 115, said Krista Rickards, director of marketing at Victoria Manor.
What is not in dispute is that Mrs. Slough had been the oldest person in the United States since April, when 113-year-old Mary Dorothy Christian died in San Pablo, Calif.
“[Mrs. Slough] is the oldest living American as of the time she died,” L. Stephen Coles, executive director of the Gerontology Research Group, said Sunday.
The organization, affiliated with the UCLA School of Medicine, maintains a Web site of the oldest people alive. Three different types of documentation–birth or baptismal certificates, marriage certificates and census data–are used to verify ages.
According to the Web site, Mrs. Slough was the third-oldest living person in the world, behind two men in Japan. Kamato Hongo turned 116 last month, and Mitoyo Kawate turned 114 in May.
The oldest person on record was Jeanne Calment, a Frenchwoman who was 122 when she died in 1997.
Mrs. Slough was born Elena Rodenbaugh in a log cabin in Horsham, Pa.