JEFFERSON, Ohio -One thing Jean Waldron knows for sure about her 111-year-old mother, Mary Margaret Dean-Smith, is that she is determined.
She knows what she wants and when she wants it
Waldron said.
So it did not surprise her when her mother, identified by researches as the oldest person in Ohio, survived pneumonia about three weeks ago.
Waldron, 79, said she agonized over a medical opinion that her mother needed a feeding tube.
I decided I could not do that to her. I couldn't make myself decide to let anyone stick a tube down my mother's throat at age 111 she said yesterday.
The next morning, her mother began to drink normally. She was out of the hospital after a four-day stay and back to the Jefferson Geriatric & Rehab Center, where she has lived for about four years.
She's just a real determined person I guess
Waldron said.
Mary Margaret Dean-Smith was born Oct. 7, 1893, in Pittsburgh. She is the oldest person in Ohio, the 11th oldest in the United States and the 30th oldest in the world, according to the Validated Living Supercentenarian List, which is kept by the Gerontology Research Group in Los Angeles. A supercentenarian is anyone who is 110 or older.
Waldron said her mother no longer walks. She answers yes or no to questions, except for occasional times when she has an urge to talk. Then she talks until she wears herself out and falls asleep, Waldron said.
Waldron credits her mother's long life to genetics and a healthy lifestyle.
A local newspaper, The Ashtabula-Star Beacon, asked Waldron to ask her mother to explain the secret to her long life. The woman replied: I used to be a good dancer.
-The Associated Press
17
Archives
The Associated Press
