OLDEST OF ALL

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13326, 1 May 1941, Page 3

OLDEST OF ALL

SYLVIA HOOVER OF CALIFORNIA One danger of growing old is that other people become proud of you, sometimes adding a few imaginary years to your age for the sake of effect. This may have happened to Sylvia Hoover of California; but even if this has happened to her, and if she is not 114, as folk say she is, we may concede that she is probably the world's oldest old lady. Sylvia Hoover believes she was born while John Quincy Adams Avas president of the United States, which means that she came into the world soon after 1524. Married in 185 6, she and her husband were sold as slaves. For seven years they were parted, he having one master, she another. Abraham Lincoln's emancipation of the slaves enabled man and wife to live together again, and of their 12 children two are still alive, Walter Hoover S2 and Rose Hoover 72. Sylvia proudly boasts that her husband was the first freed slave in America to own his own land, farming 150 acres in the Mississippi Valley.

Sylvia is still vigorous and apparently a remarkable woman, and if, as she says, she has celebrated her 114th birthday, the least we can do is to wish her one happy return.