Shreveport:
A Louisiana woman believed to have been the oldest living African-American and one of the last children of US slaves has died at age 113.
Mississippi Winn, an upbeat former domestic worker known as "Sweetie," died yesterday afternoon at Magnolia Manor Nursing Home, said Milton Carroll, an investigator with the Caddo Parish Coroner's Office. He said he could not release her cause of death.
Winn was believed to be the oldest living African-American in the US and the seventh-oldest living person in the world, said Robert Young of the Gerontology Research Group, which verifies information for Guinness World Records.
Young said Winn was one of two known people left in the United States whose parents both were almost certainly born into slavery because documents show they were born before the end of the Civil War, though her great-niece Mary C Hollins says Winn never acknowledged that.
"I don't know much about that," Hollins recalled Winn saying when asked about her parents' early years.
Young visited Winn in July 2010 and remembered her being much more fit than others her age.
"When I asked her how old she was, she knew she was 113 but she thought she was young," he said. "She always thought there would be a next year. Unfortunately that didn't happen.
That was just the thing, she had a very positive attitude."
With Winn's death, Young's Los Angeles-based gerontology group has verified Mamie Rearden, 112, of South Carolina as the current oldest known living African-American. He said Eunice Sanborn, 114, of Texas is the world's oldest known living person.
Hollins said last evening that Winn was in good health and mentally sharp until recently.
She described her great-aunt as "a strong-willed person, a disciplinarian" who believed that elders should be respected.
"She was living on her own until she was 103," Hollins said, cooking for herself and taking walks. "She just believed she could handle anything."