RIP: Catherine Hagel

Catherine Hagel
28 Nov 1894 - 6 Dec 2008

ZUI this article from the Minneapolis-St Paul Star-Tribune:

Catherine Hagel of New Hope, the third-oldest documented person in the world, has died at age 114.

Hagel, who had 35 grandchildren, 58 great-grandchildren and 20 great-great grandchildren, had been in frail heath since she turned 111, according to her daughter, Cecelia Gulczinski, 90, of Crystal.

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Last month, she became the third-oldest person in the world, when an Indiana woman died at age 115 and 220 days.

For further information on Mrs Hagel, ZUI this article dated 19 Jun 08, also from the Star-Tribune:

Hagel continues to break new ground. Today, at age 113 and 73 days, she enters the record books.

Hagel is the longest-lived Minnesotan, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which documents and tracks "supercentenarians" -- people 110 and older.

This is the day Hagel surpassed the previous record set by her sister-in-law and good friend from childhood, Delvina Dahlheimer, who died at 113 and 72 days in 2002.

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Until she was 100, Hagel stayed on the 40-acre farm near Rogers after her husband died in 1966, keeping up a huge garden, sewing, quilting and holding court with visiting relatives.

"When Mom was about 80 we tried to get her to move after the house burned down, but she refused," her daughter said. "She camped out on a cot in the garage, then in an old trailer house till we rebuilt the farmhouse."

Finally, increasing frailty and a painful case of untreated shingles drove Hagel to leave the farm and move to Northridge Care Center in New Hope.

She was born Catherine Dahlheimer on Nov. 28, 1894, on a farm near Dayton.

That year Grover Cleveland was president, Coca-Cola was first bottled and the Great Hinckley Fire killed more than 400 people.

Mrs Hagel was the first supercentenarian listed by the Gerontology Research Group (GRG) to die since the death of Edna Parker on 26 November. The GRG's list of living supercentenarians currently contains 89 people (79 females and 10 males), ranging from Maria de Jesus of Portugal (born 10 Sep 1893) to Irma Schmidt of Connecticut (born 7 Oct 1898). None of them live in Minnesota.