World's oldest person, Arkansan Gertrude Weaver, dies Posted: Monday, April 6, 2015 3:09 PM EDT Updated: Monday, April 13, 2015 2:53 PM EDT 
 
 Channel 7 News has confirmed that the world's oldest person, 116-year-old Gertrude Weaver from Arkansas, died Monday morning.  Gertrude Weaver, who just last week became the world's oldest-known living person, has died at the age of 116 at a senior care facility in Arkansas, officials said on Monday. The cause was complications from pneumonia, according to KATV. She enjoyed being read news articles about being the oldest person on the planet, said Kathy Langley, the administrator of the Silver Oaks Health & Rehabilitation Center in Camden, Arkansas. She would have turned 117 on the Fourth of July and said she wanted President Obama to attend her birthday party. Gertrude Weaver, born in 1898, was already the oldest person in America, but she was pronounced the world's oldest person on April 1 after it was announced that 117-year-old Misao Okawa in Japan had died. Reuters reports that Weaver, the daughter of sharecroppers, was born in Arkansas near the Texas border and worked as a domestic helper. The world's oldest known person is now Jeralean Talley of Inskter, Michigan, who was born on May 23, 1899 and will turn 116 next month, according to the group.
– Gertrude Weaver was the oldest-known living person on Earth for nearly a week, and she got a kick out of it, too, NBC News reports. When 117-year-old Misao Okawa died of heart failure on April 1, Weaver took the top spot at age 116 and basked in the limelight from her Arkansas senior care facility, where she liked reading news articles about herself. She died there peacefully this morning due to complications from pneumonia, KATV reports. "She certainly enjoyed it," says the facility's administrator. "We are devastated by her loss." Weaver was born to a family of sharecroppers in Arkansas, near Texas, on July 4, 1898, and took on work as a domestic aid, Reuters reports. Weaver credited her long life to being kind to people and eating food she cooked herself, says NPR. One of her last wishes was to have President Obama visit the Silver Oaks Health & Rehabilitation Center in Camden, Ark., for her birthday. The new world's-oldest is Jeralean Talley, who turns 116 in May and lives outside Detroit with her daughter. She puts her longevity down to faith: "It's the Lord," she says. "Everything is in his hands." She also bowled until age 104 and says she never drank alcohol or smoked. (Weaver had more advice for living a long life.)