Submitted by: Dan Rich

 

Mary Parr

Feb. 1, 1889 – Oct. 30, 2002

South Bend Tribune 10/31/2002

Mishawaka native dies at 113

Mary Parr was believed to be nation's oldest person

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -- Mary Parr, a Mishawaka native believed to be the oldest person in the United States and second-oldest in the world, died Tuesday at Suncoast Manor, a retirement community where she had lived since 1965. She was 113.

 

Parr was determined to be the oldest resident of the United States by the Gerontology Research Group, a nonprofit organization which studies aging. She succeeded Adelina Domingues, a California woman who died at 114 on Aug. 21.

 

Parr, born Feb. 1, 1889, in Mishawaka, was the world's second-oldest person at the time of her death, the group said. Only Kamato Hongo, a 115-year-old Japanese woman, had an authenticated age older than Parr's.

 

Parr often told the secret of her longevity: Never getting married.

 

Parr spent many years working for the American Red Cross in Cape May, N.J., first as a volunteer during World War I and then as a paid employee. She also worked for the South Carolina Tuberculosis Organization, then moved to Asheville, N.C., to care for her then-retired parents.

 

Her sister, Lillian Prine, died at Suncoast Manor in 1991 at the age of 100. Parr's parents both lived into their 90s.

 

Another Florida resident is now apparently the holder of the oldest-American distinction, according to the Gerontology group. John McMorran, a former pack-a-day smoker who now lives in a Lakeland nursing home, is 113. He was born June 19, 1889.