| Charlotte Benkner | |
 | |
| Birth: | 16 November 1889 Leipzig, Germany |
| Death: | 14 May 2004 Youngstown, Ohio, USA |
| Age: | 114 years, 180 days |
| Country: |  GER USA
|
| Validated | |
Charlotte Amanda Benkner (née Enterlein; 16 November 1889 – 14 May 2004) was a validated German-American supercentenarian and the world's third-oldest validated living person (behind Ramona Trinidad Iglesias-Jordan and Maria Capovilla) at the time of her death at the age of 114 years, 180 days.
Biography
Benkner was born as Charlotte Amanda Enterlein in Leipzig, Germany on 16 November 1889, and emigrated to the United States in 1896. She grew up in Peekskill, New York, where her family ran the Albert Hotel, and as a young woman once met then President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt.
There was also a history of longevity in her family: her mother died six weeks before her 100th birthday, father lived to be 92, brother George lived to be 98, and sister Tillie died two weeks before her 100th birthday.
On her 1908 marriage to Karl Benkner, she moved west, living in Pennsylvania and Ohio before retiring to Arizona. The couple had no children. Already a supercentenarian and the oldest person in Arizona, Benkner returned to Ohio to live in North Lima. She became the oldest recognized person in the United States when 114-year-old Elena Slough died in October 2003. She lived with her sister Tillie Hare (the youngest of her siblings), whom she once cared for when their parents were running the hotel, until Tillie died, just two weeks short of becoming a centenarian, on 25 January 2004.
Benkner survived her sister by only four months, dying at 114 years 180 days after she was briefly hospitalized in Youngstown, Ohio, and was buried in Peekskill, Ohio. She remained the second-oldest validated person ever to have been born in Germany before being surpassed by Charlotte Kretschmann on 1 June 2024. She is the third oldest person ever born in Germany after Kretschmann and Augusta Holtz.
Gallery
References
- Gerontology Research Group
- Oldest Person Ready To Turn 114 - Charlotte Benkner Just Recently Inherited Title
- UPI obituary at Washington Times
- Toledo Blade obituary
- NY Journal News obituary
- Find-A-Grave entry for Charlotte Benkner
- Ohio Woman is Now The World's Oldest Person wtol.com