Jeralean Talley, previously listed as the world's oldest living person, has died at the age of 116, according to friends and family.
Longtime friend Michael Kinloch told The Huffington Post that Talley died Wednesday at her home in Inkster, Michigan. Talley had been in the hospital for about a week due to heart problems, but came home over the weekend and spent her last days with her loved ones.
Talley's 77-year-old daughter, Thelma Holloway, told the Detroit News that her mother was "ready to go home and rest." “When she left here, she didn’t suffer. She asked the Lord to take her peacefully and he did," Holloway told the paper. “Now she’s at peace.” Talley celebrated her 116th birthday on May 23. Multiple parties were held, including one with a large crowd at her church in Inkster. Deeply religious, Talley credited God for her long, healthy life. "She was a believer in Jesus Christ and she gave him all of the credit for her health, for her longevity and even for just bringing people into her life," said Kinloch, who met Talley through church about 25 years ago. "She lived her life according to what she thought God wanted her to do, and her motto was 'treat people like you want to be treated.'" Mother Talley, as she was often called, was born in 1899 in Montrose, Georgia, where she lived on a farm and picked cotton and peanuts, before she moved to Michigan in 1935.
The following year, she married Alfred Talley. They were together 52 years before he passed away.
Talley stayed active up until her death, enjoying playing with her great-great grandson. She had a fishing trip planned for this summer with Kinloch and his son Tyler, her godson. She initiated their annual fishing tradition in 1999, when Tyler was six years old.
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