Getting older is probably one of the most dreaded things in the modern world, but how angry can you be about it when it lands you a world record?
Ethel Caterham has lived through the sinking of the Titanic. She saw the start and end of two world wars (hopefully won’t witness a third). She was alive before television, penicillin, and women having the right to vote in her country. She is believed to be the last person alive born in 1909 and the final British subject born under King Edward VII. She has outlived two daughters and more than a century’s worth of global events, including pandemics.
Longevity researchers are still verifying her life, and now list her as the only living person on Earth with verified memories stretching back to the pre-World War I era. And somehow, she still answers questions about it with certainty.
She’s Seen Everything
Image via Unsplash/mali desha
Ethel’s story started in Shipton Bellinger, a village in Hampshire, England. She was the second youngest in a large family of eight children. At 18, she accepted a job as a nanny for a British military family in India, so she was traveling solo across continents in 1927, which wasn’t something many young women were doing at the time.
She stayed in India for three years before returning to the U.K., where she later met Norman Caterham at a dinner party. Norman was an officer in the British Army, and in 1933, the two were married at Salisbury Cathedral. His military career took them to postings in Hong Kong and Gibraltar.
Ethel opened a nursery in Hong Kong and taught both British and local children how to speak English, play games, and make crafts. She raised two daughters, Gem and Anne, and eventually settled with Norman in England. He passed away in 1976, but she kept going.
When the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world in 2020, Ethel caught the virus at age 110 and recovered. She kept driving until she was 97. One of her sisters lived to 104, which hints at the possibility of a long life running in the family.
So when she says she never argues and still does what she wants, it’s worth paying attention to. She’s said it repeatedly, and every time, it cuts through all the noise. There is no mention of routines or regimens, and she doesn’t have a list of habits or morning rituals.
