Emma Tillman

Emmaline Fanchon Tillman, ( Faust; November 22, 1892 – January 28, 2007) was an American supercentenarian and, for a few days, the world's oldest living person until she died aged 114 years and 67 days.

Biography

Tillman was one of 23 children born to former slaves Alphonso Faust and Martha Gibson Faust in Gibsonville, North Carolina. and did the accounts on her father's tobacco farm, sometimes serving meals for visiting state dignitaries such as Governors Raymond E. Baldwin and Ella T. Grasso, who she served as the family cook for a number of years.

Throughout her lifetime, Tillman was involved in various NAACP social programs and the National Council of Negro Women.

Tillman was a parishioner at the Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church for more than 80 years, where she became informally known as the "mother" of the church and the A.M.E. Conference as a whole. and president of the senior for fifteen years.

She lived independently until the age of 110. On January 18, 2007, she became the oldest living woman following the death of 115-year-old Canadian Julie Winnefred Bertrand, and on January 24, 2007, she became the world's oldest living person with the death of 115-year-old Emiliano Mercado del Toro (a native of Puerto Rico).

She died in an East Hartford nursing home on January 28, 2007, aged 114 years, 67 days. She holds the record for the shortest period spent as the world's oldest person. After her death, Yone Minagawa of Japan became the world's oldest person. The lecture discussed issues related to environmental philosophy, particularly the value of individual human lives compared to the value of natural environments and their preservation.