Mary Thompson, 119; Oldest Person on Earth, Unofficially

A woman who might have been recognized as the world’s oldest person if her birth certificate hadn’t been lost in a house fire has died.

Mary Thompson became ill Friday and died Monday at a hospital. She was 119 years, 2 months and 6 days old.

Thompson, who had a taste for Crown Royal whiskey and Juicy Fruit gum, had lived since age 112 at Crestpark Nursing Home in DeWitt, Ark.

“She had a special place in the dining room where she sat, and today there’s nobody in that place. She was a fixture,” nursing home director Vickie Brown said.

The staff doted over “Momma Mary,” giving her dollar bills to buy whiskey, Brown said.

At her 119th birthday Aug. 2, Thompson was inundated with cards, flowers and money.

A British television station recorded her saying “Happy birthday” to the Queen Mother, who turned 101 the next day, and the Wrigley Co. sent her a case of Juicy Fruit.

Social Security records show that she was born on Aug. 2, 1882, in Shelby, Miss. Her parents were former slaves.

Thompson lost her birth certificate in a fire about 50 years ago. The Guinness Book of Records says the document would have been necessary to certify her as the world’s oldest living person.

Guinness lists Maud Farris-Luse, 114, of Michigan as the oldest person in the world with documentation.

Historians in Arkansas and Mississippi could not find Thompson on census rolls from the late 1800s, but acknowledge records for blacks in that period are sketchy.

According to Robert Landfair, the administrator of Thompson’s estate, she was married twice, but her nurses said Thompson talked about three husbands. She had no children.