Hester Ford, who was America's oldest person living, died at her home in Charlotte, N.C., on April 17. Ford was at least 115 years old, though some records say she was possibly 116.
Ford lived through sharecropping, the 1918 flu pandemic, the Great Depression, World War I and II, Jim Crow laws, the civil rights movement and the coronavirus pandemic.
After growing up on a farm, she got married at age 14 to John Ford, and the pair purchased a farm and started raising their family in Lancaster, S.C. Together they had 12 children, four of whom are still alive, 68 grandchildren, 125 great-grandchildren and at least 120 great-great-grandchildren.