Bessie Laurena Hendricks, the oldest-living person in the United States heading into the 2023 calendar year, reportedly died Tuesday at the age of 115.
Hendricks, who was born Nov. 7, 1907 in Calhoun County, Iowa, lived through two world wars, the Spanish flu pandemic and 21 U.S. presidents.
President Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th commander in chief in American history, occupied the White House at the time of Hendricks' birth.
Speaking of birth milestones, Hendricks entered this world a full year before Henry Ford introduced the Model T — perhaps the world's most famous mass-produced car at the time.
Bessie Sharkey married Paul Hendricks in 1930. The couple would remain married for the next 65 years, before Paul passed away in 1995.
In all, the Hendrickses had five children, nine grandchildren, 28 great-grandchildren and 42 great-great-grandchildren, according to WHO13 TV in Des Moines, Iowa.
Prior to getting married, Bessie Hendricks worked as a schoolteacher in a one-room schoolhouse in Iowa, WHO13 TV reports.
Hendricks, a "supercentenarian" — someone who lives past the age of 110 — maintained an active lifestyle for the vast majority of her years.
As late as 2017, she was a regular crocheter.
And on her 112th birthday in November 2019, Hendricks revealed her secrets to longevity: hard work, a reluctance for booking doctor's appointments and regularly eating pie and cake, according to The Messenger in Fort Dodge, Iowa.
With Hendricks' passing, which took place at Shady Oaks Care Center in Lake City, Iowa, a California woman named Edie Ceccarelli is now believed to be America's oldest-living woman.
Ceccarelli will turn 115 next month, according to KTVU-TV in Oakland.
The Gerontology Research Group reports that women make up the entire listing of the World's 10 Oldest Living People.
The GRG has verified that, of the 10 oldest people in the world right now, five were born in Japan, three in the United States, one in Brazil and one in France.
The oldest human right now: Fox News Digital speculates that Sister André Randon, a 118-year-old nun living in France, currently owns this distinction.
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