America’s oldest person turned 115 years old this week, and she offered a single tip on how to live a long, happy life: “Speak your mind and don’t hold your tongue.”
Elizabeth Francis of Houston — who has lived through everything from World War I to the sinking of the Titanic — celebrated her birthday Thursday with two slices of vanilla cake, the Washington Post reported.
“We all know that we have to punch that [final] ticket someday, so we’re amazed and grateful that she’s still here,” Francis’s 69-year-old granddaughter, Ethel Harrison, told the paper.
“She’s surprised us all.”
Born in Louisiana in 1909, Francis raised her now-95-year-old daughter as a single mother, ran a coffee shop in Houston and preferred walking over driving.
The spunky supercentenarian was alive during the Great Depression, the first airplane flight across the Atlantic and 20 presidents from William Howard Taft to Joe Biden.
Francis now lives with her daughter, who is pushed by wheelchair into her bedroom every morning to watch classic sitcoms.
“They enjoy sitting next to each other to laugh and watch old episodes of ‘Good Times’ and ‘The Jeffersons’ on television,” Harrison said.
“They also love watching ‘The Price is Right.’ They both feel lucky and blessed to be together so late in life.”
Francis was crowned the country’s oldest person in February after the previous longevity record holder, Edie Ceccarelli, died a few weeks after her 116th birthday in Mendocino County, Calif.
In April, Francis was awarded a plaque recognizing her as the oldest person in the US from LongeviQuest, an organization that tracks the world’s oldest people.
“I asked her the other night how she feels about turning 115 and she smiled and said, ‘I just thank the good Lord that I’m here,’” Harrison told the Washington Post.
“She says she has nothing to complain about, and the rest of our family feels the same way.”
Harrison said she hopes Francis makes it to 117 years old, the age of the current living oldest person in the world, Maria Branyas of Spain.
“Every year that I have to order another birthday cake for my grandmother is an occasion worth celebrating to know she’s still with us,” she said.
Francis is the fourth-oldest person in the world, according to LongeviQuest.
