The validation of Rosa Brown (1899-2009) of Pleasantville, New Jersey, USA
The Gerontology Research Group is delighted to announce the validation of Mrs. Rosa Brown of the USA.
Rosa Brown was African-American woman who lived through Great Depression, segregation, and the civil rights movement. She was born in Cobham, Albemarle County, Virginia, USA. Tragically, she suffered from partial invalidity since the age of 13, when two boys playing with a gun in the woods shot her left arm. The damage was so severe that doctors couldn’t save the arm, but Brown learned to adapt. She remained in Virginia until the deaths of her parents. Then, in her early adulthood, she moved from her native Virginia to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and ran a 1-acre chicken farm in Milmay, Buena Vista Township in the 1920s. She always worked hard. Brown took eggs, turkeys, watermelons, and other good from her Milmay farm to Atlantic City, and sold them at a market. A dozen eggs sold for 50 cents. Turkeys sold for 60 cents a pound. Eventually, she made enough to have a one-stock, two-bedroom bengalow built for $500 in 1936. She had a little farm where she sold vegetables, flowers, eggs and chickens. In the mid 1960s she became a foster grandparent. Mother Brown was a faithful member of Mt. Zion Baptist Church where she worked in the kitchen selling a lot of dinners. She was a member at both the old and new locations until her health prevented her from attending services. In July 1998, she went to Our Lady’s Residence. Age did not stop her from singing some of her favourite gospel tunes.
Robert Young, present-day Guinness World Records’ representative, and GRG Director, then GRG Correspondent for the USA studied Rosa Brown’s age as early as in 2004. He discovered that Rosa Brown understated her age by several years through mid-life, but then exaggerated it in late life. Brown claimed she was born on March 15, 1890 until this was disproved around her claimed 116th birthday in 2006 by Robert Young, then the newly appointed Senior Consultant for Gerontology at the Guinness World Records. From then, Rosa Brown claimed birth in 1901. Finally, Rosa Brown’s obituary stated March 15, 1899 as birthdate. This claim was confirmed by the early-life evidence discovered by the Gerontology Research Group (GRG), leading to her formal and final validation, just one day above the supercentenarian status.
Rosa Brown’s age was verified by Robert Young, Filipe Prista Lucas, Oliver Trim, and Waclaw Jan Kroczek, and validated by the Gerontology Research Group (GRG) as of February 1, 2016.
