Elsa Julia Hardung Everly's life spanned 110 years from the 19th century to the 21st.
Mrs. Everly, who lived on her own until she was 104, was one of only 87 verified "supercentenarians" those who are 110 or older in the world.
More Americans are living past 100, but it's still rare, said Laura Trice, medical director of TriHealth's Seniors' Health program: "I'm privileged to have several centenarians in my practice, and they do seem to share some characteristics to be that long-lived. Certainly, strong and resilient personalities, and people that are charismatic, that tend to be very social and have a very good support system."
No clearinghouse of records exists, so determining the next-oldest local resident isn't easy.
To live past the century mark, it takes good genes, good habits and good luck, Arvind Modawal, a University of Cincinnati's College of Medicine geriatrician, said.
"Good genes play an important role, and then you have all the usual diseases which come on with aging, and their genetic predisposition. If one can avoid all that and live a healthy lifestyle, eat well, exercise and keep body and mind active, then to reach 100, 110 is certainly possible. It's a major accomplishment," he said.
Humans have the potential be 125, Modawal said, but making it to 110 "is something that should be celebrated."When asked by The Enquirer last year what the secret was to her longevity, Mrs. Everly said, "I never smoked, never drank or had kids." She also said she didn't eat chocolate or hamburgers, but admitted to indulging in Frisch's fish sandwiches.
Sharp until a few days before her death, Mrs. Everly remembered skating on the frozen Miami-Erie canal and riding through Cincinnati streets in a horse-drawn wagon. She recalled taking the streetcar to Redland Field with her brother and parents and eating ice cream while watching the Reds play. She loved the Reds and was hailed as the team's oldest fan in several Opening Day parades.
During the Roaring Twenties, she loved ballroom dancing and met a handsome Charles Everly at a dance in the Music Hall ballroom. They married in 1924. He died in 1953.
During World War II, Mrs. Everly was hired by Sears to track gross receipts and daily weather fluctuations using a comptometer an early electronic adding machine. She retired from the company when she was 70.
Born April 11, 1898, in Cincinnati, she was a daughter of Robert Hardung, a tailor, and Catherine LaBroisse Hardung, an immigrant from Kaiserslautern, Germany.
She grew up in Camp Washington and Northside and was a member of the Hughes High School Class of 1915. After graduation, she took a job at E. Kahn's Sons Co. but quit after two weeks because she couldn't stand the stench of the meatpacking business.
For a while, she lived at Clifton Terrace Senior Apartments, where her sister, Catherine Moore, was a neighbor. She enjoyed rooting for the Reds, doing crossword puzzles and playing bridge with her "gals."
For the past several years, Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory attended Mrs. Everly's birthday parties at Scarlet Oaks. He proclaimed April 11 "Elsa Everly Day." After asking him how long he'd been mayor, she asked, "What do you plan to do for us?"
"At 108, she was giving lip to the mayor," her great-nephew Monte Hall, of Las Vegas, said. "She was always a little sassy."
As a boy, Hall said he was always glad to go to her house in Clifton. "I'd talk her into stopping by the Virginia Bakery. She played a lot of dominoes with me. I'm 54 now, so by the time I was 7 years old, she was already retired and really old. She was still a lot of fun. She stayed that way through her final years. She had a wit about her, and she liked to joke with people."
Mrs. Everly remained active almost until the end, Shari Fleming, Scarlet Oaks activities director, said.
"We have programs every hour of the day up until the evening. She went to all the programs until last week. She had a great personality. She would smile and laugh sometimes, she would doze off."
A few days ago, Mrs. Everly went to sleep and didn't wake up.
Unconscious, her system slowly shut down, according to Dee Bardes, of Hyde Park, a distant cousin. For the past two nights, she was breathing hard.
"She died peacefully with no pain with all the residents gathered around her," Fleming said. "They really loved her a lot."
In addition to Hall and Bardes, survivors include a niece, Marilyn Moore Hall, of Kaysville, Utah; and great-nieces and -nephews, Marc Moore and Michelle Thomas, of Cape Coral, Fla., Mike Moore, of Cincinnati, Katie Blevins and Darcy Frank, of Ringgold, Ga., and Melinda Simons, of Orinda, Calif.
A service is planned for 11 a.m. Tuesday in the chapel at Scarlet Oaks Retirement Community, 440 Lafayette Ave. in Clifton. Interment will be in the Haffner plot at Spring Grove Cemetery. The Haffners were tanners. Mrs. Everly's mother, Catherine, came from Germany to live with her uncle Frank Haffner after the death of her parents.
Mrs. Everly, who lived on her own until she was 104, was one of only 87 verified "supercentenarians" those who are 110 or older in the world.
More Americans are living past 100, but it's still rare, said Laura Trice, medical director of TriHealth's Seniors' Health program: "I'm privileged to have several centenarians in my practice, and they do seem to share some characteristics to be that long-lived. Certainly, strong and resilient personalities, and people that are charismatic, that tend to be very social and have a very good support system."
No clearinghouse of records exists, so determining the next-oldest local resident isn't easy.
To live past the century mark, it takes good genes, good habits and good luck, Arvind Modawal, a University of Cincinnati's College of Medicine geriatrician, said.
"Good genes play an important role, and then you have all the usual diseases which come on with aging, and their genetic predisposition. If one can avoid all that and live a healthy lifestyle, eat well, exercise and keep body and mind active, then to reach 100, 110 is certainly possible. It's a major accomplishment," he said.
Humans have the potential be 125, Modawal said, but making it to 110 "is something that should be celebrated."When asked by The Enquirer last year what the secret was to her longevity, Mrs. Everly said, "I never smoked, never drank or had kids." She also said she didn't eat chocolate or hamburgers, but admitted to indulging in Frisch's fish sandwiches.
Sharp until a few days before her death, Mrs. Everly remembered skating on the frozen Miami-Erie canal and riding through Cincinnati streets in a horse-drawn wagon. She recalled taking the streetcar to Redland Field with her brother and parents and eating ice cream while watching the Reds play. She loved the Reds and was hailed as the team's oldest fan in several Opening Day parades.
During the Roaring Twenties, she loved ballroom dancing and met a handsome Charles Everly at a dance in the Music Hall ballroom. They married in 1924. He died in 1953.
During World War II, Mrs. Everly was hired by Sears to track gross receipts and daily weather fluctuations using a comptometer an early electronic adding machine. She retired from the company when she was 70.
Born April 11, 1898, in Cincinnati, she was a daughter of Robert Hardung, a tailor, and Catherine LaBroisse Hardung, an immigrant from Kaiserslautern, Germany.
She grew up in Camp Washington and Northside and was a member of the Hughes High School Class of 1915. After graduation, she took a job at E. Kahn's Sons Co. but quit after two weeks because she couldn't stand the stench of the meatpacking business.
For a while, she lived at Clifton Terrace Senior Apartments, where her sister, Catherine Moore, was a neighbor. She enjoyed rooting for the Reds, doing crossword puzzles and playing bridge with her "gals."
For the past several years, Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory attended Mrs. Everly's birthday parties at Scarlet Oaks. He proclaimed April 11 "Elsa Everly Day." After asking him how long he'd been mayor, she asked, "What do you plan to do for us?"
"At 108, she was giving lip to the mayor," her great-nephew Monte Hall, of Las Vegas, said. "She was always a little sassy."
As a boy, Hall said he was always glad to go to her house in Clifton. "I'd talk her into stopping by the Virginia Bakery. She played a lot of dominoes with me. I'm 54 now, so by the time I was 7 years old, she was already retired and really old. She was still a lot of fun. She stayed that way through her final years. She had a wit about her, and she liked to joke with people."
Mrs. Everly remained active almost until the end, Shari Fleming, Scarlet Oaks activities director, said.
"We have programs every hour of the day up until the evening. She went to all the programs until last week. She had a great personality. She would smile and laugh sometimes, she would doze off."
A few days ago, Mrs. Everly went to sleep and didn't wake up.
Unconscious, her system slowly shut down, according to Dee Bardes, of Hyde Park, a distant cousin. For the past two nights, she was breathing hard.
"She died peacefully with no pain with all the residents gathered around her," Fleming said. "They really loved her a lot."
In addition to Hall and Bardes, survivors include a niece, Marilyn Moore Hall, of Kaysville, Utah; and great-nieces and -nephews, Marc Moore and Michelle Thomas, of Cape Coral, Fla., Mike Moore, of Cincinnati, Katie Blevins and Darcy Frank, of Ringgold, Ga., and Melinda Simons, of Orinda, Calif.
A service is planned for 11 a.m. Tuesday in the chapel at Scarlet Oaks Retirement Community, 440 Lafayette Ave. in Clifton. Interment will be in the Haffner plot at Spring Grove Cemetery. The Haffners were tanners. Mrs. Everly's mother, Catherine, came from Germany to live with her uncle Frank Haffner after the death of her parents.
Elsa Julia Hardung Everly's life spanned 110 years from the 19th century to the 21st.
Mrs. Everly, who lived on her own until she was 104, was one of only 87 verified "supercentenarians" those who are 110 or older in the world.
More Americans are living past 100, but it's still rare, said Laura Trice, medical director of TriHealth's Seniors' Health program: "I'm privileged to have several centenarians in my practice, and they do seem to share some characteristics to be that long-lived. Certainly, strong and resilient personalities, and people that are charismatic, that tend to be very social and have a very good support system."
No clearinghouse of records exists, so determining the next-oldest local resident isn't easy.
To live past the century mark, it takes good genes, good habits and good luck, Arvind Modawal, a University of Cincinnati's College of Medicine geriatrician, said.
"Good genes play an important role, and then you have all the usual diseases which come on with aging, and their genetic predisposition. If one can avoid all that and live a healthy lifestyle, eat well, exercise and keep body and mind active, then to reach 100, 110 is certainly possible. It's a major accomplishment," he said.
Humans have the potential be 125, Modawal said, but making it to 110 "is something that should be celebrated."When asked by The Enquirer last year what the secret was to her longevity, Mrs. Everly said, "I never smoked, never drank or had kids." She also said she didn't eat chocolate or hamburgers, but admitted to indulging in Frisch's fish sandwiches.
Sharp until a few days before her death, Mrs. Everly remembered skating on the frozen Miami-Erie canal and riding through Cincinnati streets in a horse-drawn wagon. She recalled taking the streetcar to Redland Field with her brother and parents and eating ice cream while watching the Reds play. She loved the Reds and was hailed as the team's oldest fan in several Opening Day parades.
During the Roaring Twenties, she loved ballroom dancing and met a handsome Charles Everly at a dance in the Music Hall ballroom. They married in 1924. He died in 1953.
During World War II, Mrs. Everly was hired by Sears to track gross receipts and daily weather fluctuations using a comptometer an early electronic adding machine. She retired from the company when she was 70.
Born April 11, 1898, in Cincinnati, she was a daughter of Robert Hardung, a tailor, and Catherine LaBroisse Hardung, an immigrant from Kaiserslautern, Germany.
She grew up in Camp Washington and Northside and was a member of the Hughes High School Class of 1915. After graduation, she took a job at E. Kahn's Sons Co. but quit after two weeks because she couldn't stand the stench of the meatpacking business.
For a while, she lived at Clifton Terrace Senior Apartments, where her sister, Catherine Moore, was a neighbor. She enjoyed rooting for the Reds, doing crossword puzzles and playing bridge with her "gals."
For the past several years, Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory attended Mrs. Everly's birthday parties at Scarlet Oaks. He proclaimed April 11 "Elsa Everly Day." After asking him how long he'd been mayor, she asked, "What do you plan to do for us?"
"At 108, she was giving lip to the mayor," her great-nephew Monte Hall, of Las Vegas, said. "She was always a little sassy."
As a boy, Hall said he was always glad to go to her house in Clifton. "I'd talk her into stopping by the Virginia Bakery. She played a lot of dominoes with me. I'm 54 now, so by the time I was 7 years old, she was already retired and really old. She was still a lot of fun. She stayed that way through her final years. She had a wit about her, and she liked to joke with people."
Mrs. Everly remained active almost until the end, Shari Fleming, Scarlet Oaks activities director, said.
"We have programs every hour of the day up until the evening. She went to all the programs until last week. She had a great personality. She would smile and laugh sometimes, she would doze off."
A few days ago, Mrs. Everly went to sleep and didn't wake up.
Unconscious, her system slowly shut down, according to Dee Bardes, of Hyde Park, a distant cousin. For the past two nights, she was breathing hard.
"She died peacefully with no pain with all the residents gathered around her," Fleming said. "They really loved her a lot."
In addition to Hall and Bardes, survivors include a niece, Marilyn Moore Hall, of Kaysville, Utah; and great-nieces and -nephews, Marc Moore and Michelle Thomas, of Cape Coral, Fla., Mike Moore, of Cincinnati, Katie Blevins and Darcy Frank, of Ringgold, Ga., and Melinda Simons, of Orinda, Calif.
A service is planned for 11 a.m. Tuesday in the chapel at Scarlet Oaks Retirement Community, 440 Lafayette Ave. in Clifton. Interment will be in the Haffner plot at Spring Grove Cemetery. The Haffners were tanners. Mrs. Everly's mother, Catherine, came from Germany to live with her uncle Frank Haffner after the death of her parents.
Mrs. Everly, who lived on her own until she was 104, was one of only 87 verified "supercentenarians" those who are 110 or older in the world.
More Americans are living past 100, but it's still rare, said Laura Trice, medical director of TriHealth's Seniors' Health program: "I'm privileged to have several centenarians in my practice, and they do seem to share some characteristics to be that long-lived. Certainly, strong and resilient personalities, and people that are charismatic, that tend to be very social and have a very good support system."
No clearinghouse of records exists, so determining the next-oldest local resident isn't easy.
To live past the century mark, it takes good genes, good habits and good luck, Arvind Modawal, a University of Cincinnati's College of Medicine geriatrician, said.
"Good genes play an important role, and then you have all the usual diseases which come on with aging, and their genetic predisposition. If one can avoid all that and live a healthy lifestyle, eat well, exercise and keep body and mind active, then to reach 100, 110 is certainly possible. It's a major accomplishment," he said.
Humans have the potential be 125, Modawal said, but making it to 110 "is something that should be celebrated."When asked by The Enquirer last year what the secret was to her longevity, Mrs. Everly said, "I never smoked, never drank or had kids." She also said she didn't eat chocolate or hamburgers, but admitted to indulging in Frisch's fish sandwiches.
Sharp until a few days before her death, Mrs. Everly remembered skating on the frozen Miami-Erie canal and riding through Cincinnati streets in a horse-drawn wagon. She recalled taking the streetcar to Redland Field with her brother and parents and eating ice cream while watching the Reds play. She loved the Reds and was hailed as the team's oldest fan in several Opening Day parades.
During the Roaring Twenties, she loved ballroom dancing and met a handsome Charles Everly at a dance in the Music Hall ballroom. They married in 1924. He died in 1953.
During World War II, Mrs. Everly was hired by Sears to track gross receipts and daily weather fluctuations using a comptometer an early electronic adding machine. She retired from the company when she was 70.
Born April 11, 1898, in Cincinnati, she was a daughter of Robert Hardung, a tailor, and Catherine LaBroisse Hardung, an immigrant from Kaiserslautern, Germany.
She grew up in Camp Washington and Northside and was a member of the Hughes High School Class of 1915. After graduation, she took a job at E. Kahn's Sons Co. but quit after two weeks because she couldn't stand the stench of the meatpacking business.
For a while, she lived at Clifton Terrace Senior Apartments, where her sister, Catherine Moore, was a neighbor. She enjoyed rooting for the Reds, doing crossword puzzles and playing bridge with her "gals."
For the past several years, Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory attended Mrs. Everly's birthday parties at Scarlet Oaks. He proclaimed April 11 "Elsa Everly Day." After asking him how long he'd been mayor, she asked, "What do you plan to do for us?"
"At 108, she was giving lip to the mayor," her great-nephew Monte Hall, of Las Vegas, said. "She was always a little sassy."
As a boy, Hall said he was always glad to go to her house in Clifton. "I'd talk her into stopping by the Virginia Bakery. She played a lot of dominoes with me. I'm 54 now, so by the time I was 7 years old, she was already retired and really old. She was still a lot of fun. She stayed that way through her final years. She had a wit about her, and she liked to joke with people."
Mrs. Everly remained active almost until the end, Shari Fleming, Scarlet Oaks activities director, said.
"We have programs every hour of the day up until the evening. She went to all the programs until last week. She had a great personality. She would smile and laugh sometimes, she would doze off."
A few days ago, Mrs. Everly went to sleep and didn't wake up.
Unconscious, her system slowly shut down, according to Dee Bardes, of Hyde Park, a distant cousin. For the past two nights, she was breathing hard.
"She died peacefully with no pain with all the residents gathered around her," Fleming said. "They really loved her a lot."
In addition to Hall and Bardes, survivors include a niece, Marilyn Moore Hall, of Kaysville, Utah; and great-nieces and -nephews, Marc Moore and Michelle Thomas, of Cape Coral, Fla., Mike Moore, of Cincinnati, Katie Blevins and Darcy Frank, of Ringgold, Ga., and Melinda Simons, of Orinda, Calif.
A service is planned for 11 a.m. Tuesday in the chapel at Scarlet Oaks Retirement Community, 440 Lafayette Ave. in Clifton. Interment will be in the Haffner plot at Spring Grove Cemetery. The Haffners were tanners. Mrs. Everly's mother, Catherine, came from Germany to live with her uncle Frank Haffner after the death of her parents.
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