From the ArcaMax Publishing, Weird News Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/weirdnews/s-370701-896631
SNYDER, N.Y. (UPI) -- Pat Thomas, New York state's oldest resident,
turned 113 Sunday -- and by the way, she has a new hobby, painting.
Thomas, born in 1895, is the sixth-oldest person in the United States
and the eighth-oldest in the world, The Buffalo (N.Y.) News reported,
citing the Verified Living List of the Gerontology Research Group.
An avid gardener, she has cultivated a reputation as "The Plant Lady,"
but took up painting after she could no longer garden, the newspaper
said.
Thomas -- whose first name is Olivia -- was born in Iowa and grew up
in Illinois. She has lived in Snyder, a Buffalo suburb, since 1946,
when she moved there with her husband Frederick, an engineering
professor at the University of Buffalo.
She has been recognized for volunteering more than 9,000 hours at what
was formerly known as the Veterans Administration Hospital, where she
grew flowers in a greenhouse for patients and established a garden
therapy program.
She remains "alert and talkative," the News reported, but she doesn't
have much to say about her remarkable longevity.
"I don't like to think about it," she told the newspaper.
Her husband died in 1982 and the couple had no children.