Why Do Some Georgia Women Live So Long?

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June 12th, 2019

In 2011, Guinness World Records representative Robert Young helped recognize Besse Cooper, then 114, as the world’s oldest living person. Cooper, who died in 2012, spent most of her life as a schoolteacher in the small town of Between, Georgia. She is just one in a long line of Georgia women who reached extraordinary ages.

John Amis / Associated Press file

By Gerdeen Dyer

Late last year, when Maggie Katie Brown Kidd of Clayton County celebrated her 114th birthday, news reports described her as the oldest living Georgian, the oldest living African American and the 10th-oldest person in the world.

She’s been moving up since then.

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