World’s oldest black person, Daisey Bailey, dies

Farewell Daisey Bailey, what amazing changes you must have seen in your life.

On the same day Mrs. Bailey passed, the world’s oldest living person passed on too. The article below had the following quote which is sorta wonderful, “like people who are good at sports, they’re good at living a long time.”

Daisey Bailey of Detroit, world’s oldest black, dies at 114
Nip of bourbon kept supercentenarian going, granddaughter says
Oralandar Brand-Williams / The Detroit News  |  March 09. 2010

Detroit — Throughout her 114 years of living, Daisy Bailey kept to more than a few habits.

Relatives marveled at her hard work; how she tended a garden and flower bed; and close ties she kept with loved ones.

“She had a beautiful personality,” said her granddaughter, Helen Arnold. “She would give someone her last dime.”

Bailey died of organ failure Sunday at Henry Ford Hospital. The Detroit resident was the fifth oldest person in the world and the oldest living black person as certified by the Gerontology Research Group, which tracks people who are 100 years and older.

She would have turned 115 March 30, said her granddaughter Helen Arnold.

Bailey was one of two supercentenarians, or those older than 110, who died Sunday. Mary Josephine Ray, who was certified as the oldest person living in the United States, died at age 114 years, 294 days, at a nursing home in Westmoreland, N.H.

Bailey’s family said she was born in 1895, in Watertown, Tenn. The Gerontology Research Group puts Bailey’s birthday a year later, based on U.S. census records.

Bailey’s great-grandson Morris Draper said she shared many stories of struggle and hard work in the South.

“She used to talk about how life was as for them and how hard they used to work in the fields to make a living ….raising (their) own animals,” he said.

Bailey came to Michigan in 1943 and settled in Pontiac. She worked as a domestic and babysitter during most of her working years, said Arnold.

When she wasn’t working, Bailey liked growing turnip greens, said Arnold.

Bailey’s secret to longevity? She liked “taking a nip” of old bourbon whenever she could, Arnold said.

Bailey was rarely ill and suffered mostly from mild cases of hypertension and arthritis, Arnold said. Arnold also attributed her grandmother’s long life to eating a lot of vegetables and pork. “She didn’t eat nothing but pork, no beef,” she said.

Robert Young, a researcher for the Gerontology Research Group, said centenarians like Bailey and Ray are “the cream of the crop.”

“Like people who are good at sports, they’re good at living a long time,” he said.

Dr. L. Stephen Coles, at UCLA School of Medicine and director/co-founder of the research group, said sometimes longevity is just a matter of genetics.

“It turns out people that are the longest lived have very bad habits,” said Coles. “Some of them smoke or drink and some of them do both. They still live a long time, and we don’t know how. They have very good genes.”

In 1989, Bailey moved to Detroit to be with Arnold after someone broke into her Pontiac apartment and stole money and her birth certificate. In the past decade, her health began to fail and she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Bailey outlived all four of her children, Arnold said. “She was like my mom,” she said.

Services are 10 a.m. Friday at the One Greater Love Church, 12100 Holmur in Detroit.

Associated Press contributed.