Besse Cooper died peacefully at the Park Place nursing home in Monroe, Georgia, according to her son Sidney Cooper.
“She looked real good when she passed away,” the 77-year-old Cooper told Reuters, saying his mother died quietly and without suffering.
“She got up this morning, had a big old breakfast and got her hair fixed,” he said. “It’s just like she got up planning to do it.”
He said his mother, who taught school until her first child was born in 1929, had four children. All of them survived her and are still in good health, he said.
“She lived in three centuries. Don’t many people do that,” said Cooper. He added that his mother died after a brief bout of breathing trouble that put her back in bed after lunch.
Guinness World Records gave Cooper the distinction of being the oldest living human in January 2011. She was born August 26, 1896 in Tennessee.
When asked for her secret to longevity, Cooper once said: “I mind my own business and I don’t eat junk food.” She married her husband Luther in 1924, and they had four children. As of her 114th birthday, Cooper has 12 grandchildren and more than a dozen great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In the same year Cooper was born, the first Dow Jones Industrial Average was published, the first modern Olympic games were held and the first Ford vehicle was built.
The title was stripped from her for a few months when it was discovered that Brazilian-born Maria Gomes Valentim, a fellow super centenarian, was 48 days older. Guinness gave the title back to Cooper after Gomes Valentim died in June 2011.
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