LOS ANGELES — Although she liked her bacon crispy and her chicken fried, she never drank, smoked or fooled around, Gertrude Baines once said, describing a life that lasted an astonishing 115 years and earned her the title of oldest person on the planet.
It was a title Baines relinquished Friday when she died in her sleep at Western Convalescent Hospital, her home since she gave up living alone at age 107 after breaking a hip.
She likely suffered a heart attack, said her longtime physician, Dr. Charles Witt, although an autopsy was scheduled to determine the exact cause of death.
“I saw her two days ago, and she was just doing fine,” Witt said Friday. “She was in excellent shape. She was mentally alert. She smiled frequently.”
Baines was born in Shellman, Ga., on April 6, 1894, when Grover Cleveland was in the White House.
She said last year it was a life she thoroughly enjoyed.
“I’m glad I’m here. I don’t care if I live a hundred more,” she said with a hearty laugh after casting her vote for Barack Obama for president. “I enjoy nothing but eating and sleeping.”
Her vote for Obama, she added, had helped fulfill a lifelong dream of seeing a black man elected president.
In her final years, she passed her days watching her favorite TV program, “The Jerry Springer Show,” and consuming her favorite foods: bacon, fried chicken and ice cream. She complained often, however, that the bacon served to her was too soft.
With Baines’ death, 114-year- old Kama Chinen of Japan becomes the world’s oldest person, said Dr. L. Stephen Coles of the Gerontology Research Group, which tracks claims of extreme old age.
Chinen was born May 10, 1895.
