Charlotte Benkner
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Charlotte Benkner (born Charlotte Enterlein in Leipzig, Germany on November 16, 1889 - May 14, 2004 in Youngstown, Ohio) was the oldest person of verified age in the world from November 2003, until sufficient documentation was found to validate the age of Ramona Trinidad Iglesias-Jordan.
She emigrated to the United States in 1896. She grew up in Peekskill, New York, where her family ran the Albert Hotel, and as a young woman once met Theodore Roosevelt.
On her 1908 marriage to Karl Benkner, she moved west, living in Pennsylvania and Ohio before retiring to Arizona. Already a supercentenarian and the oldest person in Arizona, she returned to Ohio. She became the oldest recognized person in the United States when Elena Slough died in October 2003. She lived with her sister Tillie, who she once cared for when their parents were running the hotel, until Tillie died, weeks short of turning 100, on January 25, 2004.
Charlotte survived her sister by only a few months, dying after she was briefly hospitalized. She was buried in Peekskill.
External links
- UPI obituary at Washington Times (http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040517-100301-3964r.htm)
- Toledo Blade obituary (http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040517/NEWS08/405170361/-1/NEWS)
- NY Journal News obituary (http://www.nyjournalnews.com/newsroom/051804/b04p18benkner.html)nl:Charlotte Benkner