The second oldest person in history is the American Sarah Knauss, who reached the age of 119 years and 97 days. She was the last living person who verified that he was born before 1885.

Sarah DeRemer Knauss was born on September 24, 1880 in Clark (Pennsylvania, USA) and died in the same city on December 30, 1999. By only 32 hours she missed the opportunity to live in the year 2000, meaning that she would have lived in 3 different centuries. Even if she wasn’t able to do so, Sarah lived some other amazing events, such as seven USA wars, 23 different USA presidents, the Titanic episode and the construction of the Statue of Liberty. In fact, she was older than the Eiffel Tower and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Knauss got married to Abraham Lincoln Knauss in 1901, when she was certified seamstress. She made ​​her own wedding dress, in addition to tablecloths and clothes for others. Rumor says it that Sarah learnt to sew when she was 4 years old. After marrying Knauss, who was a director in an insurance office, she became a housewife. Together they had one daughter, Kathryn Sullivan Knauss who saw her mom death when she was 96 years old. In fact, her daughter Kathryn lived to be 101 years old.

When she was 115 years old, Sarah was still following her passion on television: Golf. She boasted that she had been able to live many years by nibbling milk chocolate turtles, cashews and potato chips. In an interview in 1998, she said that in order to live as long as she did, you have to keep yourself busy, work hard, and never worry about how old you are.

Knauss died of natural causes, although she wasn’t sick at that moment. She still remains as the oldest person in the United States.

http://onlineathens.com/stories/123199/obi_old.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Knauss

http://www.grg.org/knauss119.htm

http://genforum.genealogy.com/knauss/messages/8.html

http://articles.philly.com/1998-11-20/news/25731263_1_sarah-knauss-oldest-person-kitty-sullivan