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 past couple weeks, “her voice got weaker and weaker, and finally she just didn’t respond,” said Bob Stetter, who will turn 71 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,” Bob Stetter said.
He described her as 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.’ “
