Charlotte Benkner
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Charlotte Benkner (born Charlotte Enterlein in Leipzig, Germany on November 16, 1889 - May 14, 2004 in Youngstown, Ohio) was the oldest person of verified age in the world from November 2003, until sufficient documentation was found to validate the age of Ramona Trinidad Iglesias-Jordan of Puerto Rico in March 2004. The recognition of María Capovilla of Ecuador in December 2005 moved Benkner down to third place. On a plus note, Charlotte holds the record for the oldest verified German-born person.
She emigrated to the United States in 1896. She grew up in Peekskill, New York, where her family ran the Albert Hotel, and as a young woman once met Theodore Roosevelt.
On her 1908 marriage to Karl Benkner, she moved west, living in Pennsylvania and Ohio before retiring to Arizona. Already a supercentenarian and the oldest person in Arizona, she returned to Ohio. She became the oldest recognized person in the United States when Elena Slough died in October 2003. She lived with her sister Tillie Hare (the youngest of the siblings), whom she once cared for when their parents were running the hotel, until Tillie died, 2 weeks short of becoming a centenarian, on January 25, 2004.
Charlotte survived her sister by only 4 months, dying after she was briefly hospitalized. She was buried in Peekskill.
