Mississippi Winn, whose parents were likely born slaves, died in Louisiana yesterday.
When she turned 113, Mississippi Winn could still stand up on her own and never thought her age was a detriment to her life.
The upbeat former domestic worker from Shreveport, known in the city as “Sweetie,” died Friday afternoon at Magnolia Manor Nursing Home, said Milton Carroll, an investigator with the Caddo Parish Coroner’s Office. He said he could not release her cause of death.
Winn was believed to be the oldest living African-American in the U.S. and the seventh-oldest living person in the world, said Robert Young of the Gerontology Research Group, which verifies information for Guinness World Records.
Anyone who’s read The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival will obviously be put in mind of Miss Rita. But I had no idea Mississippi Winn was actually alive. Weird. In other such weirdness, there was apparently a priest with the last name of Sibille in the town of Ville Platte who left the church to get married.
KEN WHEATON 