On Tuesday, the woman believed to be the oldest person in the U.S. passed away at her home in Cleveland Heights, the Associated Press reported. According to the Gerontology Research Group, which tracks and verifies the age of people aged 110 and older, Lessie Brown lived for 114 years and 108 days.
Brown’s grandparents were slaves in Georgia, according to Cleveland Magazine. Brown left school after the eighth grade, working full time on her parents’ farm. At 16 years old, the family moved to Cleveland — but it was a treacherous journey, seen at that time as an act of rebellion. “The country was still deeply segregated,” Cleveland Magazine reported. “African-Americans were pressured to stay in the South and work on farms, not to move to the North and start a new life. So her father was forced to travel at night. The rest came in a small group, leaving behind anything they couldn’t carry.”
Brown met her husband Robert Brown at a Halloween party in 1924, got engaged after two months, and stayed married for the next 66 years until he died in 1991.
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