After brief reign, oldest known person dies

Emma Faust Tillman, whose life spanned three centuries and 21 U.S. presidencies, died Sunday night at an East Hartford nursing home, the facility’s administrator said. At 114, she was the world’s oldest known living person.

Tillman, the daughter of former slaves, was born during the administration of President Benjamin Harrison. Her four-day reign as the world’s oldest person was the shortest on record, said Robert Young, senior consultant for gerontology for Guinness World Records.

“She went peacefully,” Karen Chadderton, administrator of Riverside Health and Rehabilitation Center, said Monday. “She was a wonderful woman.”

Tillman assumed the title Jan. 24 with the death of 115-year-old Emiliano Mercado del Toro of Puerto Rico. The shortest previous reign was 13 days by Mitoyo Kawate, who was 114 when she died Nov. 13, 2003, in Hiroshima, Japan.

Young said he was trying to confirm that the next person on the list of oldest living people is Yone Minagawa of Fukuoka, Japan, who is 114, born Jan. 4, 1893.