Woman Believed To Be Oldest Person In U.S. Dies

(Lake City, IA) A woman believed to be the oldest person in the U.S. has died at the age of 115.  Bessie Laurena Hendricks of Iowa died Tuesday after celebrating her 115th birthday last month.  Hendricks was born in 1907 and was alive to witness news of the Titanic sinking, both World Wars, the Great Depression, and both the Spanish flu and COVID-19 pandemics.  She spent her career as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse and was the mother of five children, three of whom are still alive.  The Gerontology Research Group says with her passing, California’s 114-year-old Edie Ceccarelli is now the country’s oldest living person.