How many people from the 1800s are alive

Until , she was a worker at a jute factory in her town before working in the kitchen of a boarding school. She retired at When asked about the secret of her longevity by the La Stampa newspaper in , she first mentioned her daily glass of homemade brandy.

But Morano mostly cites her eating habits for helped her live so long. For lunch I'll eat pasta and minced meat then for dinner, I'll have just a glass of milk. Sleep is another important factor in her longevity, she told the newspaper.

Morano goes to bed before 7 every night and wakes up before 6 a. Italy is known for its centenarians — many of whom live in Sardinia — and gerontologists at the University of Milan are studying Morano, along with a handful of Italians over age , to try to figure out why they live so long. But she's gotten this far. When the AP visited in , Morano was in feisty spirits, displaying the sharp wit and fine voice that she says used to stop men in their tracks.

And then they had to run because they were late and should go to work," she recalled, before breaking into a round of the s Italian love song Parlami d'amore Mariu. Morano has a Guinness World Records certificate declaring her to be the oldest person alive. In an interview with La Stampa newspaper five years ago she said her fiance had died in World War One and that she had then been forced to marry a man she did not love.

We got married. The eldest of eight children who has outlived all her younger siblings, she knows that people are curious about her. Birthdays aside, Morano is a solitary person. Having left her violent husband in shortly after the death in infancy of her only son, she lived alone, working in a factory producing jute sacks to support herself.

She clung to her independence, only taking on a full-time carer last year, though she has not left her small two-room apartment for 20 years, and has been bed-bound for the last year. She and her husband had four children, all of whom have died except for a son, now in his 90s. According to an article in Time magazine , some of the highlights of Weaver's week are manicures, Bible study and "wheelchair dancing," which she does three times a week.

She is also visited regularly by friends and her granddaughter Gradie Welch, who is nearly So how has she lived so long? Also, she says, it helps to have strong religious beliefs. Don't follow anyone else," she told the local Camden News. I've followed Him for many, many years and I ain't tired. Born Jeralean Kurtz, one of 11 children in in Montrose, Ga.

Seeking better economic opportunity, she moved to Inkster in where she married Alfred Talley and had one child, Thelma, who was born in Talley and her husband were wed for 52 years before he died in at the age of She has three grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren. According to her daughter, with whom she lives, Talley's secret to long life is staying active. Until recently she played the slot machines at casinos, bowled until she was , and even mowed her own lawn at She still goes on annual fishing trips with a friend and his son, and in May , at age , caught seven catfish.

She's great to be around. And she likes to eat," Talley's great-great- granddaughter Aerial Holloway, 23, told the Detroit Free Press , adding that Grandma Talley, as many in the family call her, taught her to live by the Golden Rule, which was Talley's lifelong philosophy. That's where she still is today, a resident of the Vandalia Senior Center in Brooklyn.

After graduating from a private boarding school in Alabama — at her graduation, according to The New York Times , she gave a presentation on "Negro Music in France" — she was accepted at the famed Tuskegee Institute. Her parents, though, did not have enough money to pay for college, so she decided to move to New York, where the Harlem Renaissance was in its early stages.