Naomi Washington Whitehead is a living history book and witnessed 21 presidents
GREENVILLE, Pa. — The oldest living person in America once walked the same sandy roads, attended the same country church and watched the same South Georgia sunsets that generations of Pierce County residents know by heart.
Naomi Washington Whitehead was born September 26, 1910, in rural Pierce County when William Howard Taft was president, automobiles were still a novelty and much of South Georgia moved at the pace of a mule and wagon.
Today, at 115 years old, Ms. Whitehead is believed to be the oldest living person in the United States and the second- oldest person in the world.
For the Whitehead and Washington families, however, she is not a record holder. She is simply “Big Aunt Naomi.”
Ms. Whitehead is the woman who remembers relatives nobody else remembers. She is the keeper of family stories passed down through six generations. Ms. Whitehead is the voice that was once called on Sunday afternoons to sing old church hymns. She is living proof that faith, family and hard work never go out of style.
In a world that seems to move faster every year, Ms. Whitehead remains a direct connection to a Pierce County that exists now only in memory.
Born to Douglas and Pauline Washington, Ms. Whitehead grew up on the family’s farm during an era when cotton fields stretched across the countryside and children learned the value of work at an early age. She helped raise cotton and tobacco alongside her brothers and sisters while growing up in a community where neighbors depended on one another and church served as the center of daily life.
Her education began at Gethsemane Church near Patterson. The small wooden church doubled as a schoolhouse for local children long before modern school buildings appeared throughout the county.
Ms. Whitehead’s lifetime spans nearly every major chapter of modern American history. She was born before women gained the right to vote nationwide. She lived through two world wars, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, the moon landing and the arrival of the internet.
Yet family members say the most remarkable thing about Ms. Whitehead is not the history she witnessed. It is the history she still remembers.
Whitehead married Sylvester Whitehead in 1930 as America entered the Great Depression. Together they built a life centered on faith, family and perseverance. They raised three sons, Parrish, Elbert and Sylvester Jr., while navigating the hardships and triumphs that defined much of the 20th century.
Tammie Cummings, Ms. Whitehead’s great-grandniece, said family members often admired the devotion she showed her husband throughout their marriage.
“She loved her husband faithfully all of her life,” Cummings said. “She was very proud of the life and family they built together.”
Sylvester Whitehead died in 1979. During the decades that followed, Whitehead endured the loss of her three sons and the siblings who shared her childhood. After the death of her last surviving son in 2011, Ms. Whitehead moved to Pennsylvania, where she now resides at St. Paul’s Senior Living Community near Greenville.
Even there, a piece of Pierce County remains with her.
A photograph of her parents hangs on the wall of her room, a reminder of the Georgia farm where her story began more than a century ago.
Today, Ms. Whitehead’s legacy stretches across six generations. By her 110th birthday, her family included 12 grandchildren, 28 great-grandchildren, 49 great-great-grandchildren and three great-greatgreat- grandchildren.
More than 80 relatives traveled to Pennsylvania to celebrate her 115th birthday last year. Family members came from Georgia, Florida, Texas, New York and beyond to honor the woman at the center of their family tree. Plans are already underway for another gathering when she turns 116.
Ware County native Clarence Washington, Ms. Whitehead’s great-grandnephew, said her significance reaches far beyond her age.
“I am very proud to have a living legacy in my family,” Washington said. “I feel truly blessed. She is a living part of United States history.”
Washington said Ms. Whitehead’s strength and faith have influenced generations of relatives.
“She has always influenced our family through her strength and her faith. She guided our family to faith through her example,” he said.
Faith remains one of the defining themes of Ms. Whitehead’s story.
Isabelle Hunter, a Patterson native and Ms. Whitehead’s niece, still remembers the Sunday phone calls.
“She would call me and sing hymns,” Hunter said. Her favorite was “Take Your Burden to the Lord and Leave It There,” a gospel classic written by Charles Albert Tindley.
“She has always loved the Lord and lived for the Lord,” Hunter said. “She influenced our family to follow God and rely on Him.”
Family members often credit that faith, along with a lifetime of discipline and healthy living, for helping her reach 115 years of age. They say she never smoked, rarely sat idle and always placed God at the center of her life.
Yet perhaps her greatest gift is the one that cannot be measured.
When Ms. Whitehead talks about her brother, Clarence, or her sister, Ellen, as children working in the fields of Pierce County, she shares stories that exist nowhere else. Through her memories, younger generations meet relatives they never had the opportunity to know.
Every family eventually loses pieces of its past. Stories fade. Names disappear. Memories become photographs tucked inside old albums.
The Whitehead family has been blessed with something rare.
Their history still has a voice. For Pierce County, Naomi Washington Whitehead is more than the oldest living person in America. She is a living bridge between past and present. She is a reminder that history is not always found in textbooks or museums.
Sometimes history grows up in a little South Georgia community, attends church down the road, raises a family and lives long enough to tell the story herself.
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