The oldest person in the United States has died at the age of 114 at her Pennsylvania nursing home.
Delphine Gibson passed away on Wednesday at Robert D Heath Funeral Home in Mount Union.
Lessie Brown, of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, 113, is now believed to be the oldest American, according to the Gerontology Research Group in Sandy Springs, Georgia.
Delphine Gibson, (pictured in 2017) the oldest person in the United States, has died at the age of 114 at her Pennsylvania nursing home
Gibson of Pennsylvania, died Wednesday at the age of 114. Her death was announced by a local funeral home
Gibson, who had been living at a Huntingdon nursing home since 2004, when she was 100, attributed her long life to good food, her faith in God and her church.
She was a long-time a member of Mount Hope Missionary Baptist Church.
Although she was blind and deaf near the end of her life, she still enjoyed singing and humming songs like ‘Amazing Grace,’ nursing home unit manager Miranda Glover told WJAC-TV in February 2017.
Gibson, who had been living at a Huntingdon nursing home since 2004, when she was 100, attributed her long life to good food, her faith in God and her church
She took no medication except for a single vitamin a day, Glover said.
‘She has an amazing spirit,’ Glover said. ‘She always singing to us or sharing the gospel. She is a treasure to the nation.’
Gibson was born in South Carolina in 1903 and moved to Pennsylvania after marrying Taylor Gibson in 1928.
She was a resident of AristaCare in Huntingdon Park for 15 years and on her 114th birthday, she celebrated with a personal greeting from Governor Tom Wolf for her accolade.
On her 112th birthday, Huntingdon Mayor Dee Dee Brown declared it ‘Delphine Gibson Week’ in the borough.
Gibson was said to have married Taylor Gibson in 1928 and had three children – Frank, Moody and Ella. Taylor Gibson died in 1980.
Gibson (pictured in an undated photograph) was a long-time a member of Mount Hope Missionary Baptist Church
Born Delphine Tucker on Aug. 17, 1903, in Ridgeway, South Carolina, she helped on her family’s farm until she married Taylor Gibson in 1928
Kammi Plummer, admissions director at AristaCare at Huntingdon Park, where Gibson lived most recently, told the Altoona Mirror she informed Gibson when she became the oldest living American.
‘She just kind of acted surprised and said, ‘You don’t say?” Plummer said. ‘We also told her she was she prettiest. She just said, ‘I know that.”
Born Delphine Tucker on Aug. 17, 1903, in Ridgeway, South Carolina, she helped on her family’s farm until she married Taylor Gibson in 1928.
The couple lived for a time in North Carolina then moved to Mount Union to join a growing community of African-Americans who came up from the South to work in the area’s now-historic brickyards. The couple had three children.
Her husband worked at Harbison Walker Refractories for 20 years before retiring in 1962, according to his obituary. He died in 1980.
She became the country’s oldest person following the February 2017 death of 114-year-old Adele Dunlap, of Flemington, New Jersey.
Gibson’s funeral will be Saturday at Mount Hope Baptist.