Sister M. Matthia Gores, 104; Oldest Subject of Long-Term Study on Aging

Sister M. Matthia Gores, the oldest participant in an unusual, long-term study of aging and Alzheimer’s disease that has tracked the health of 700 nuns since 1986, has died. She was 104.

A retired schoolteacher, Gores was the oldest nun in the international congregation of the School of Sisters of Notre Dame, an obscure Minnesota convent chosen for the study because its residents live longer--to an average age of 85--and have a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s, dementia and other debilitating brain diseases than the general population.

Researchers believe that the key to the elderly sisters’ longevity and mental acuity is their intellectually challenging lives. Gores, who achieved some national fame for her participation in the project, was a prime example.

She was born in New Trier, Minn., on Jan. 8, 1894, the fifth of seven children. She taught elementary and high school for more than 50 years, retiring in her 70s. She overcame cancer and, at 101, kept fit with regular games of Nerf basketball and wheelchair aerobics.

She rose at 5 a.m. every day in order to recite four litanies. And she knitted prodigiously, averaging a pair of mittens a day for the needy.

“I think that my hobby of knitting keeps my mind alert and my body fit,” she said recently.

In her half-century in the classroom, Gores taught 4,378 pupils. She knew the exact number, according to Sister Doris Welter, because she kept a record of all of them.

“If any died,” said Welter, pastor of ministry at the convent, “she put a little cross by the name and they got extra prayers.”

Prayer, Welter said, was the center of Gores’ day. So was telling stories. Though she had to use a wheelchair to get around, her room saw a constant stream of visitors who came to hear Gores tell stories, many of them about her former students.

She listened to the news every day so that she could include world events in her prayers.

Before she died Monday, she was alert enough to receive communion, Welter said.

The convent in Mankato, about 60 miles southwest of the Twin Cities, has about 160 sisters, of whom 27 have surpassed 90 years of age. The oldest nun there now will turn 104 on Dec. 29.

Like her fellow sisters, Gores agreed to donate her brain to science.