OBITUARY: Sarah Knauss [09/24/1880-12/30/1999]

[The Los Angeles Times, p. A24 (December 31, 1999)]

Mrs. Sarah Knauss held the title of the world's oldest living person (according to The Guinness Book of Records) for a little over two years when she died at the age of 119. She died in Allentown, Pennsylvania in the nursing home where she had lived for the last nine years. Born September 24, 1880, in the small coal mining town of Hollywood, Pennsylvania, Knauss married Abraham Lincoln Knauss in 1901. He became a well-known Republican leader in Lehigh County.

Knauss was a homemaker and insurance office manager. Her daughter, Kathryn Sullivan, who is 96, once explained Knauss' three-digit age by saying:""She's a very tranquil person and nothing fazes her. That's why she's living this long."

In 1995, when asked if she enjoyed her long life, Knauss said matter-of-factly: "I enjoy it because I have my health and I can do things." Her passions were said to be watching golf on television, doing needlepoint, and nibbling on milk chocolate turtles, cashews, and potato chips. "Sarah was an elegant lady and worthy of all the honor and adulation she had received," said Joseph Hess, an Administrator of the Phoebe-Devitt Homes Foundation facility where Knauss died quietly in her room. Officials said that, to their knowledge, she had not been ill.

Knauss lived through seven U.S. wars, the sinking of the Titanic and Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic. She was older than the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty, and was already 88 when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in July 1969.

In addition to her daughter, Knauss is survived by several grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren.

Other persons have attempted to claim the title of "Oldest Living Person," but have been unable to verify their birth dates with proper documentation (Birth Certificates, Marriage Certificates, Baptismal Certificates, etc.) to the satisfaction of The Guinness Book of Records.