City Officials Honor 123-Year-Old Woman

A woman thought to be one of the oldest people in the world was honored last week by the Baldwin Park City Council.

Sara Luna Corral, believed to have been born Nov. 20, 1868, in Durango, Mexico, was given a special plaque by Mayor Fidel Vargas.

Birth certificates were not issued in rural Mexico when Corral was born, but she is thought to be 123 because of the date of an ammunition-dump explosion she remembers happening during her childhood.

Corral has had eight children, including one thought to be 101, who lives in Durango. Corral lives with her 73-year-old daughter, Emertria Carrasco, in the Telacu Senior Court in Baldwin Park. She walks without help, sees without glasses and said she lives “very comfortably.”

Mineola Niles, director of patient affairs at Santa Anita Convalescent Hospital and Retirement Center in Temple City, is retiring after 26 years at the center.

Niles, an Arcadia resident, began at the hospital as a nurse’s aide in 1965.

Dan J. Farkas, a special investigator for the Los Angeles county controller, has been appointed to the San Gabriel Planning Commission. He will complete the unexpired term of departing Commissioner Ernest Brambila.

David Dong, director of finance for San Gabriel, will leave his post June 26 and will join the city staff in Monterey Park as director of management services.

Thomas McGrosky of La Verne, a driver for United Parcel Service, was recently honored for completing 20 years of driving without an accident.

He started with UPS in May, 1966, as a package pickup driver and later became a delivery driver for the Los Angeles Civic Center area.