Meet The Oldest Living American As She Clocked 114

Alelia Murphy, the oldest living American, turned 114 on Saturday, celebrating in a vibrant yellow gown, a tiara and lace gloves. She bopped her head to the beat as friends and family sang an up-tempo version of “Happy Birthday.” The supercentenarian — a title reserved for people who are 110 years old or older — was feted at the Harlem State Office Building in New York. Murphy’s age has been validated by the Gerontology Research Group which keeps track of the oldest humans on the planet.

Murphy never drank alcohol, eats well, communicates well and still has an excellent blood pressure and heart rate, Natalie Mhlambiso, her visiting nurse. But she does have her vices.

“She likes things that are sweet. She tells you she wants something like soda, ice cream, chocolate,” Mhlambiso told the outlet. “She is still feisty. She will let you know when she wants to be left alone.”

When Murphy was born in North Carolina on July 6, 1905, Theodore Roosevelt was the U.S. president, Albert Einstein introduced his theory of special relativity and the Wright brothers made their historic first flight just a couple of years earlier. She grew up before processed food became common, so she ate very healthy and has always been active. Murphy moved to Harlem in the 1920s where she worked as a seamstress, a baker and a saleswoman, and liked dancing at Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom, the paper reported. She now lives in a two-bedroom public-housing apartment with a granddaughter and a home-health attendant. She’s about two years younger than the current oldest person in the world, 116-year-old Kane Tanaka of Japan. The number of centenarians in the U.S. jumped by 65% between 1980 and 2010, according to the 2010 census. The vast majority — 82% — of the more than 53,000 Americans who were 100 and older in 2010 were women.