After a life touching three centuries in Nebraska, Helen Stetter has died at the age of 113 in Valentine.
She was believed to have been the oldest living Nebraskan, the oldest to have lived her entire life in the state, the second-oldest Nebraska native, the second-oldest living American and the world’s fourth-oldest person.
Helen Stetter is listed in Guinness World Records 2007 as being among the world’s 15 oldest living people.
She was born Nov. 18, 1893, in Chadron. She died Friday in a Valentine nursing home.
Stetter lived in the same Valentine house all her life until moving to the nursing home 18 years ago. Valentine is in west-central Nebraska, near the South Dakota border.
She never married, never had a driver’s license and was in good health other than losing her sight and some of her hearing, said her second cousin, Bob Stetter.
“She was still able to hear me,” he said Saturday. “I talked into her left ear, and she could understand me.”
But in the last couple weeks, “her voice got weaker and weaker, and finally she just didn’t respond,” said Bob Stutter, who will turn 71 on Friday.
“I think her body just kind of shut down on her.”
A representative of the nursing home said the exact cause of death was not yet known.
Helen Stetter had lived to become the second-oldest living American, the second-oldest person in the history of Nebraska and the 91st oldest person in recorded world history, said E.A. Kral, a Wilber, Neb., resident who does research on people who live to be 100.
Her cousin said Helen Stetter never complained about being in a nursing home or the infirmities of age.
“She was not a complainer, at least to me,” he said.
He described her a courteous, gracious person who took her Episcopal faith seriously.
“One day I said to her, ‘You eat good, now, and sleep good and say your prayers.’ She said to me, ‘Every day, Bob.'”
Many in the Stetter family have enjoyed long lives.
Bob Stetter said his cousin lived with her mother and cared for her until she died at 98. And, he said, “She’s got a nephew that lives in Colorado who is 92 or 93 and is in good health.”
Although Helen Stetter looked forward to her birthdays, Bob Stetter said, she never made a big deal about them: “I think she just accepted it.”
“I don’t think I’d want to stay around that long,” he said. “When you can’t see or really hear, quality of life can’t be real good.
“But, you know, she accepted it.”
Kral said Saturday that Helen Stetter’s father lived to age 72 and that she outlived her three siblings, but he didn’t have their ages at death.
His study of centenarians is a hobby, said Kral, who will soon to be 71 himself—”And I feel like it, too.”
He verifies dates of birth with census records, marriage certificates and sometimes baptism records.
“We have had over 100 in Nebraska to live to 107 or above,” he said.
The nation averages 1 centenarian for every 17,100 residents, he said, but the average for Nebraska is 1 for 9,480. South Dakota has the best ratio: 1 per 8,212, according to death certificate figures, 1991-1994.
Kral said Julia Huigens Tharnish of Creighton is now the oldest living Nebraskan.
She will turn 110 on Wednesday.
“What’s remarkable about her is that she raised 14 children,” he said. “She has 293 direct descendants, so I guess a lot of them are going to attend her birthday party.”
Bob Stetter said his family members were gratified by all the years that they got to spend with his cousin Helen.
“We hated to lose her, but by the same token, she’s in a better place than she has been,” Stetter said.
“We all face that eventuality—hopefully later rather than sooner,” he said.
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On the Net:
Nebraska Health Care Association centenarian statistics:
