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Sarah Knauss

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Sarah Knauss (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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This person's only claim to notability was her advanced age. Her name and age are properly recorded in various tables, such as List of American supercentenarians and List of the verified oldest people. Available sources do not cover her life and deeds in any noteworthy detail, and the article offers nothing more than trivia, hence WP:NOPAGE applies. — JFG talk 13:34, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Pennsylvania-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 17:11, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 17:11, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This article fails WP:GNG, WP:BIO1E, and WP:NOPAGE. There is no policy that the "oldest x" is notable and this article is packed with longevity fancruft like her husband was a local Republican leader, how many wars she lived through, how many presidential administrations she lived through, etc. She lived. She avoided the Reaper longer then most. She died. In her own words, "So what?" Her name, life dates, and nationality are best handled on the five lists they already reside on. This WP:PERMASTUB is not needed. Newshunter12 (talk) 00:52, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"She avoided the Reaper longer than most" is an extreme understatement. Specifically, she avoided the Reaper longer than every other American whose age can be verified. Futurist110 (talk) 01:26, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and she has five separate list entries informing readers about her unusual age. Nothing more is needed. Newshunter12 (talk) 02:47, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Into the Rift has been blocked as a sockpuppet. EEng 04:15, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Why should he withdraw? The last nomination was 3 years ago and the first one 11(!) years ago. People are asked not to renominate within 6 months, and this is clearly longer than 6 months. » Shadowowl | talk 15:41, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Extended content
  1. Young, Robert (2010). "Age 115 or more in the United States: Fact or fiction?" (PDF). Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg GmbH: 250–253. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-11520-2_15. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-10-26. Retrieved 2018-10-26 – via Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)>p?The article notes:

    Sarah Knauss, at 119 years and 97 days, is the oldest American whose age has been validated. She was named the “world’s oldest person” by Guinness World Records upon the death of Marie-Louise Meilleur of Canada on April 16, 1998. More importantly, she is listed as the oldest verified supercentenarian in the Social Security Administration’s Kestenbaum study of U.S. supercentenarians who reached the age of 110 or greater between January 1, 1980, and December 31, 1999 (see chapter by Kestenbaum and Ferguson in this volume for study details).

    The Sarah Knauss case first garnered international media attention in August 1997, following the death of Jeanne Calment at 122, who had held the Guinness record for “world’s oldest person” for several years4. In an attempt to gain Guinness recognition following the Au- gust 4, 1997, death of France’s Jeanne Calment, the Sarah Knauss case was researched in 1997 by genealogist Edith Rogers Moyer for Phoebe Ministries. Prior to that time, the Sarah Knauss case had already at- tracted the attention of both the American media and the scientific community, but documents had not yet been located. Her 117th birth- day in September 1997 drew major attention, as did her ascent to the title of “world’s oldest person” in April 1998. Her family was featured in Life magazine in February 1999, complete with a photo of six living generations.

    Meanwhile, international researchers Tom Perls, Jean-Marie Robine, Bernard Jeune, and John Wilmoth visited Sarah Knauss in 1998. Some may have arrived skeptical, but all left convinced she was really the age claimed. Documents that were located and reported by the genealogist Moyer in 1997 (a partial list of these results has been published) (Robine and Vaupel, 2002), included a 1900 census match, an 1880 census record for the family, a 1901 marriage license, and an August 29, 1901, newspaper article. Indeed, checking back through the local Allentown newspaper archives (http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/mcall/) one finds scores of news articles, including coverage of her 106th, 107th, 108th, 111th, 113th, 114th, 115th, 116th, 117th, 118th, and 119th birthdays. Sarah Knauss was featured in a national news article as far back as age 115. There can be no doubt that Sarah was well-known in her hometown as a centenarian a decade before the international media coverage began. In the case of Sarah Knauss, the Social Security records accord with the birth date of September 24, 1880. Indeed, she was featured in a news article as “Three Generations on Social Security.” When she was 115, her daughter was 92, and her grandson was 70.

  2. Merrill, Gary F. (2015). Our Aging Bodies. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-7156-0. Retrieved 2018-12-03.

    The book notes:

    Stories from the lives of our oldest neighbors are worth telling. Here are a couple of examples. "So what," said Sarah Knauss nearly fifteen years ago, when told that she was the world's oldest living person. Knauss relinquished that title on December 31, 1999, when she died at the age of 119. She had lived through seven US wars, the sinking of the Titanic, and Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic. She was older than the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty and was already eighty-eight when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in July 1969. Knauss died in the Phoebe-Devitt Homes Foundation nursing home in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where she had lived for nine years. Born September 24, 1880, in the small coal-mining town of Hollywood, Pennsylvania, she married Abraham Lincoln Knauss in 1901. He became a well-known Republican leader in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. Sarah was a homemaker and insurance office manager. When her daughter, Kathryn Sullivan, was ninety-six, she explained Knauss' three-digit age by saying: "She's a very tranquil person and nothing fazes her. That's why she's living this long." In 1995, when asked if she enjoyed her long life, Knauss said matter-of-factly: "I enjoy it because I have my health and I can do things." Her passions were said to be watching golf on television, doing needlepoint, and nibbling on milk chocolate turtles, cashews, and potato chips. "Sarah was an elegant lady and worthy of all the honor and adulation she has received," said Joseph Hess, an administrator of the facility where Knauss died quietly in her room. Officials said she had not been ill. She inherited the "oldest" crown, validated by the Guinness Book of World Records, with the death of Marie-Louise Febronie Meilleur of Corbeil, Canada, on April 26, 1998. Meilleur had been Knauss' senior by twenty-six days.

  3. Mason, Mark (2018). The Book of Seconds: The Incredible Stories of the Ones that Didn’t (Quite) Win. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-1-4746-0849-7. Retrieved 2018-12-03.

    The book notes:

    Sarah Knauss: second-oldest person ever

    ...

    Second place belongs to Sarah Knauss, who lived for 119 years, 97 days. She was born Sarah DeRemer Clark on 24 September 1880, in Hollywood. Not that one – it didn't exist yet. This was Hollywood, Pennsylvania, a coal-mining village. Life expectancy back then was 40 years. Sarah would achieve nearly treble that.

    In 1901 she married Abraham Knauss, whose middle name was Lincoln (this was only three decades after the President's assassination). The couple honeymooned at Niagara Falls, then set up home in Allentown, which was then still a small town. Sarah felt like an outsider because the grocery store assistants spoke in Pennsylvania Dutch. The town had horse-drawn trolleys – Sarah saw the last one ever finish its service.

    In 1903 she gave birth to her only child, Kitty. In the 1920s the family got its first-ever refrigerator – before that, ice had been delivered by the ice man. For Christmas 1940, when she was already 60, Sarah received an electric sewing machine. She would make her own clothes and hem her family's clothes right up to her death – another 59 years. Her life was simple: watching TV (particularly golf and the QVC shopping channel), making pot pie and Moravian sugar cake, playing bridge with friends. She never flew in a plane or learned to drive. Kitty called her mother 'a happy warrior in her home'.

    Her husband died in 1965, aged 86. In 1998, when Sarah was 117, family members walked into her dining room and told her she had become the world's oldest living person. She smiled and said: 'So what?' The following year, on 30 December, one of the carers at the Allentown nursing home where Sarah lived called in to check on her. She was fine, and showed no signs of any illness. Less than an hour later another check was made: Sarah had passed away. By just 33 hours she had missed out on becoming one of the very few people to live in three centuries. She left many descendants, including one great-great-great-grandson, four-year-old Bradley.

  4. Withington, John (2017). Secrets of the Centenarians: What is it Like to Live for a Century and Which of Us Will Survive to Find Out?. London: Reaktion Books. pp. 68, 98. ISBN 978-1-78023-818-0. Retrieved 2018-12-03.

    The book notes:

    It is striking how Jeanne Calmont, Shigechiyo Izumi and Jiroemon Kimura all lived virtually their whole lives in the same area, and the same is true of the oldest American and second-oldest human being who ever lived, Sarah Knauss. Knauss, who entered this world on 24 September 1880, always lived in Pennsylvani. The daughter of a mining engineer, she was born Sarah Clark in a small town called Hollywood. At wenty she married, and she and her husband were together for 64 years until he died aged 86 in 1965, leaving her a widow for the last 34 years of her life. Knauss never had a full-time job, but she was a talented seamstree who made her own wedding dress and went on creating clothes and hand-sewn quilts until she was 107. ...

    A journalist who went to visit Knauss just over a year before she died reported that she was five feet tall (1.5 m) and weighed just over six-and-a-half-stone (44 kg). Slight as she was, she sat 'tall and graceful' in her wheelchair. The staff ...

    Knauss's daughter, who lived to be 101, credited her mother's long life to her relaxed attitude: ...

    In the final week of her life she went to the hairdresser, just as she did every week, 'wearing a fashionable dress and her trademark smile'. A volunteer at the home said that people thought Knauss looked much younger than her formidable age. She could still talk, though her voice was very soft. The main downside of her advanced age, according to her daughter, was the she had gone 'almost totally deaf'. ...

  5. Devlin, Ron (1999-01-09). "World's Oldest Person Gets Slice Of Life * Sarah Knauss, 118, Of Allentown And Her Family Featured In Magazine". The Morning Call. Archived from the original on 2018-12-03. Retrieved 2018-12-03.

    The article notes:

    Sarah Knauss, 118, the oldest resident of Allentown and the world, is delighted with Life Magazine's feature on her family's longevity.

    "Oh my goodness, is that me?," Knauss replied Friday when shown the two-page color spread in Life's February issue. "It's so nice."

    In a family portrait by the internationally-known photographer Theo Westenberger, Knauss is surrounded by five generations of her longevous family. A story by Michael Vitez, a reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer, outlines Knauss' remarkable life.

    ...

    With Knauss is her 95-year-old daughter, Kitty Sullivan of Allentown; her 73-year-old grandson, Bob Butz of Fleetwood, Berks County; her 49-year-old great-granddaughter, Kathy Jacoby, an Allentown teacher; her 27-year-old great-great-granddaughter, Kristina Patton, and her 3-year-old great-great-great-grandson Bradley Patton.

  6. "Sarah Knauss, 119; World's Oldest Person". Los Angeles Times. 1999-12-31. Archived from the original on 2018-12-03. Retrieved 2018-12-03.

    The article notes:

    Born Sept. 24, 1880, in the small coal mining town of Hollywood, Pa., Knauss married Abraham Lincoln Knauss in 1901. He became a well-known Republican leader in Lehigh County, Pa.

    Knauss was a homemaker and insurance office manager. Her daughter, Kathryn Sullivan, who is 96, once explained Knauss' three-digit age by saying: "She's a very tranquil person and nothing fazes her. That's why she's living this long."

  7. "World's Oldest Person, Sarah Knauss, Dies at 119". The Washington Post. 1999-12-31. Archived from the original on 2016-05-23. Retrieved 2018-12-03.

    The article notes:

    Sarah Knauss, listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest person, died Dec. 30 at the age of 119, apparently of natural causes, according to an official at the Allentown, Pa., nursing home where she lived.

    "She died quietly in her room. She was not ill," said Marcella Moyer Schick, executive director of the Pheobe-Devitt Homes Foundation. "They had stopped in to see her just less than an hour before, and when the nurse went back, she had passed away."

    Knauss, who was born Sept. 24, 1880, and lived a quiet life as a homemaker and insurance office manager, found herself in the international spotlight after Guinness declared her the world's oldest person in 1998 upon the death of Marie-Louise Febronie Meilleur, of Quebec, who was 117.

  8. Solomon, Wendy E. (1998-04-18). "Allentown Woman, 117, Unfazed That She's Oldest Living Person * `So What?' Was Sarah Knauss' Reaction When Told She's Now In Guinness Book After Death Of Former Record Holder -- A Canadian Woman". The Morning Call. Archived from the original on 2018-12-03. Retrieved 2018-12-03.

    The article notes:

    Knauss was born on Aug. 24, 1880, the only child of Amelia and Walter Clark, in Hollywood, a small mining town in Luzerne County.

    The family moved to Bethlehem, where her father was a superintendent at the former New Jersey Zinc Co. in Bethlehem.

    She met the charming and gregarious Abraham Lincoln Knauss at Mealey's Dance Auditorium, a dance hall on Hamilton Street in Allentown, where City Hall is now.

    The popular "Abe" Knauss would later become one of Lehigh County's best known Republican leaders.

    The couple married in 1901, moved to west Allentown and two years later had Sullivan.

    After her husband retired as recorder of deeds, the couple drove to St. Petersburg, Fla., every winter. She has never flown in an airplane.

    Knauss was a homemaker who played bridge and had a talent for sewing. She sewed all her daughter's clothing, including her wedding dress.

  9. Robine, J.-M.; Vaupel, J. W. (April 2001). "Supercentenarians: slower ageing individuals or senile elderly?". Experimental Gerontology. 6. Elsevier. doi:10.1016/s0531-5565(00)00250-3. Retrieved 2018-12-03.

    The article notes in a footnote:

    The case of Sarah Knauss provides a good example of validation in the absence of a birth record. Sarah De Reemer Clark Knauss was born September 24, 1880, in the village of Hollywood, Hazle township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. We do not have any birth documentation for her but she was recorded on June 5, 1900, in the Twelfth Census of the United States as Sadie, daughter, born September 1880, age 19, single living with: Clark Walter, Head, born April 1849, age 51, married since 25 years; Amelia, Wife, born June 1857, age 42, married since 25 years, having 7 children, 4 living; Charles, son, born July 1878, age 21, single; Sadie1...4; Earl, son, born May 1889, age 11, single; and Emily, daughter, born May 1893, age 7, single. Walter Clark was recorded in the 1880 Federal Census of Hollywood village with his family: Walter Clark, age 31, engineer; wife Emelia, age 23, keeping house; son albert L, age 4; and son Charles H age 2. The age correspondance between the two census is right for Walter Clark, Amelia and Charles. Sarah was born the following September 24, 1880. Sarah De Reemer Clark and Abraham Lincoln Knauss were married by Rev. Dr. Gilbert Henry Sterlingon August 28, 1901 (Application for marriage license, Sarah DE R. Clark, 21 years; Marriage record Cathedral Church of the Nativity Bethlehem, Sarah Deremer Clark, age 20; The GLOBE, South Bethlehem, Thursday, August 29, 1901: '...of the contracting couple, Abraham Lincoln Knauss and Miss Sadie De Reemer Clark'). Thus there is no doubt that a daughter of Walter and Amelia Clark, born in September 1880 and named Sarah (Sadie) De Reemer, was 19 years old in September 1900 (Twelfth US Census) and 20 years old (Close to 21 years old) when she married Abraham Lincoln Knauss on August 1901. There is no reason to consider that this person is other than Sarah Clark Knauss who was resident of the Phobe Home in Allentown, Pennsylvania, known to be 118 years old when we have visited her in November 1998. Since her marriage her family history is well documented. This case was documented by Edith Rodgers Mayer (PhoebeMinistries, 1997).

  10. Ennart, Henrik (2013). Åldrandets gåta: Vetenskapen som förlänger ditt liv (in Swedish). Stockholm: Ordfront. p. 114. ISBN 978-91-7441-406-6. Retrieved 2018-12-03.

    The book notes:

    Världens näst äldsta människa Sarah Knauss, blev 119 år och Thomas Perls träffade henne när hon var 118 år och bodde på ett äldreboende. Hennes 95-åriga dotter levde i ett boende alldeles i närheten.

    – Hon bodde hemma utan behov av hjälp till hon var 111 år. Anledningen till att hon flyttade till boendet var att hon började se och höra illa. I övrigt hade hon inga allvarliga sjukdomar, minns Thomas Perls.

    Fortfarande nâr hon var 118 år kunde Sarah Knauss föra vanliga konversationer. Det var först under sitt sista halvår som hon inte alls var kontaktbar.

    Till skillnad från Jeanne Calment, den enda människan som blivit äldre, rökte aldrig Sarah Knauss. Däremot delade de en passion för godis och inte minst choklad. Hennes dotter förklarade att hon "hatade grönsaker", och fortfarande på äldreboendet kunde Sarah Knauss strunta i huvudrätten för att gå direkt på efterrätten.

    From Google Translate:

    The world's second oldest woman, Sarah Knauss, became 119 years old and Thomas Perls met with her at age 118 and lived in a retirement home. Her 95-year-old daughter lived in a place close by.

    – She lived at home without the need for help until she was 111 years old. The reason she moved to the accommodation was that she began to see and hear badly. By the way, she had no serious illnesses, remembers Thomas Perls.

    Still, when she was 118, Sarah Knauss could conduct regular conversations. It was only during her last half that she was not at all touchable.

    Unlike Jeanne Calment, the only person who grew older, Sarah Knauss never smoked. On the other hand, they shared a passion for candy and not least chocolate. Her daughter explained that she "hated vegetables", and still at the retirement home, Sarah Knauss was allowed to go to the main course to go straight to the dessert.

  11. Glenday, Craig, ed. (2017). Guinness World Records 2018: Meet our Real-Life Superheroes. Guinness World Records. ISBN 978-1-912286-18-8. Retrieved 2018-12-03.

    The book notes:

    Highest combined age for a parent and child (ever)

    Sarah Knauss (USA, 1890–1999) and her 96-year-old daughter Kathryn "Kitty" Knauss Sullivan (USA, 1903–2005) had a combined age of 215 years 140 days when Sarah passed away. She was 119 years 97 days old at the time, while Kathryn was aged 96 years 43 days.

There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Sarah Knauss to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".

Cunard (talk) 03:45, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Notability isn't the question; it's NOPAGE. EEng 04:16, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete/redirect to appropriate list. As usual in these cases, the issue isn't notability but NOPAGE. There are literally two sentences about her life in the entire article, other than when she died: Sarah DeRemer Clark was born on September 24, 1880, in Hollywood, Pennsylvania, a small coal mining village. She married Abraham Lincoln Knauss in 1901. The absurdity of the remaining strained fancruft is almost painful:
At age 116, she was recognized as being the new United States national longevity record holder, then thought to have been held by Carrie C. White (reportedly 1874–1991). In 1998, she became the world's oldest person when 117-year-old Canadian Marie-Louise Meilleur of Quebec died. When her family members told her of her newfound fame, her response was a smile and "So what?" ... Knauss lived through seven wars involving the U.S. (including both World Wars) and the administrations of 23 presidents (from Rutherford B. Hayes to Bill Clinton). At her death, she was one of seven living generations of her family. She died just thirty-three hours before the 2000 year celebrations began, which were sometimes reported as having just missed living into a third century, although the 21st century and the 3rd millennium actually began on January 1, 2001 ... died of natural causes in Allentown, Pennsylvania on December 30, 1999 at Phoebe Home (now known as Phoebe Allentown, a subsidiary of Phoebe-Devitt Homes, Inc.)
The lessons on calendars, wars, and presidents, and the bit about the parent company of the nursing home, are just delicious. A perfect NOPAGE case. EEng 04:12, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete WP:NOPAGE applies. I think EEng is being charitable saying there are two sentences about her. The town description "a small coal mining villiage" is not about her and knowing the name of her non-notable husband "Abraham Lincoln Knauss" does little to help us understand her life. Legacypac (talk) 04:33, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I wrote the following in AfD2: "20-Mule-Team Keep: Oh for pity's sake. Passes the GNG with flying colors, and that's all she wrote. I understand that Xxxxx is waving around NOPAGE with all the force and furor that your average American Republican politician screams "Liberal! Liberal! Liberaaaaalll!!" -- as if the mere word is a trump card that automatically supersedes all other considerations or arguments -- but sooner or later the fact must be faced that it's not that the Keep proponents don't understand his argument, we don't agree with it. The Knauss article is, I freely concede, poorly written and longer on irrelevant blather than on encyclopedic fact, but that's a content dispute, not an appropriate issue for AfD." My feelings have not changed in the three years since, except to add that the So She Was The Oldest Living Human Being, So What? premise being pushed by some of the Delete proponents could be just as readily pushed on damn near every biographical article on Wikipedia. We do not keep or reject articles based on "So What?" We do so using well-established guidelines on notability. The subject meets the fundamental one. Ravenswing 07:45, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it's apparent that you really don't understand the NOPAGE argument, since you're still talking about notability, and NOPAGE has nothing to do with notability. EEng 08:02, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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