In the 1980s, prior to the internet age, the identity of the world’s oldest person was not always clear. Instead, several different people were alleged to be the oldest living person in the United States and the world. It is now known that either Easter Wiggins (1874?-1990) or Florence Knapp (1873-1988) held the title of the oldest living person in the US at the time, but Wiggins had yet to be acknowledged as a candidate (and wouldn’t be for another three decades), and Knapp had only been featured in a handful of news articles. This resulted in another candidate entering the spotlight in 1987 as the alleged oldest living American. She would go on to live until 1991 and, at the time, was believed to have been the oldest living person in the world. Both that title and her status as a validated supercentenarian would later be rescinded, a case of mixed up identities. Still, as far as we know, Carrie White never claimed either status herself. What remains a fact, however, is the tragic tale that was Carrie White’s life history.
As noted, Carrie White first became known to a wider audience upon having celebrated her alleged 113th birthday in November 1987, when she lived in the Putnam Memorial Nursing Center in Palatka, Florida. The report was brief and little identifying information was provided. Upon the time of her 114th birthday in 1988, she had been recognized as the oldest living person in the world. The birthday party was a big event with hundreds of visitors, including reporters and TV crews. Carrie White was reported to have had a strong line of documentation due to having been hospitalized for a long period of time and to have been born in Gadsden, Florida on 18 November 1874. Reports indicated that she had resided in a state mental hospital in Chattahoochee, Florida for close to 75 years. White herself was not talkative about her past and would only speak with a few people she trusted. She enjoyed chewing tobacco, sweets, and the color pink.
Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee, home of Carrie White for 75 years. (Wikimedia Commons)
Carrie White’s guardian, Marjorie Allen, was able to provide some additional information about White’s life but acknowledged that little was known. Hospital records helped provide some information about White prior to institutionalization, including that her mother was named Sally Joiner, that White had been married to a blacksmith named John White, had taught piano in Tallahassee and that she had been diagnosed as suffering from post-typhoid psychosis on 19 November 1909 and admitted to a state mental hospital by her husband at that time, where she remained until 1984.
White was first transferred to the Gainesville convalescent center and thereafter to the nursing home in Palatka. No birth record or marriage record had been found at the time Carrie White was recognized as the oldest living person. A 1990 article in the Florida newspaper The Sun Sentinel added that efforts to locate relatives, including a sister named Marie Harden, had failed.
Reports from her 115th birthday in 1989 added little additional information about the life of Carrie White but affirmed once again that she had been recognized by Guinness World Records, although other contenders existed, including an alleged 122-year-old named Jackson Pollard.
When White turned 116, The Sun Sentinel noted that her life was shrouded in mystery and repeated much of the information that was already known. White was noted to be bedridden and rather tired but dressed in beautiful colors. Her life was noted to have been tragic, abandoned in a mental hospital for a length of time equivalent to the average person’s lifespan. John, her husband, had left her there after she had displayed signs of poor mental health, including showing her arms “inappropriately” and claiming that somebody was out to harm her twins, despite the couple not having children. White had also threatened to harm herself. Apparently, this was the last time Carrie saw her husband. She would remain stuck in the same institution for an eternity – an institution that was investigated for brutal and inhumane patient abuse.
Yet, some people who worked at the institution in Chattahoochee did not understand why White had remained there for 75 years; she had seemed to be a sweet and kindly woman who had apparently been very pretty in her younger days. In those days, the person who had put their relative in the mental hospital had to take them out, but White’s husband never returned for the sweet and sociable woman that would sit and laugh during the full moon. Carrie White had lived a life where she was abandoned by her loved ones and would rarely display sadness. But by her 116th birthday, happiness also seemed to have abandoned her.
Carrie White died on 14 February 1991, allegedly 116 years, 88 days old. Following the death of White, Jeanne Calment was recognized as the world’s oldest living person. Research in the 2010s would indicate that Carrie White was, in fact, not a supercentenarian.
As was known, with help from the SSA study, her parents were John and Sallie Joyner and from reports she had a sister named Marie Harden. A 1880 census had been purported to belong to Carrie White as it listed a Carrie Joyner, age 7, living in Marion, Forida with her parents. However, this document was misattributed, as the parents for this Carrie were Abraham and Marthy Joyner. My research indicates that this particular Carrie married William Sissons in 1894 and moved to New York. This is corroborated by a marriage record and a SSA application (parents are not named) that list Carrie Sissons with the maiden name Joyner and her place of birth/residence as Florida. There are census matches in New York and a death index from 1955, indicating that Carrie Joyner Sissons died in Brooklyn, New York at age 81.
For Carrie White, there is no other match for a Carrie Joyner in the 1880 census. However, the 1900 census gives a highly likely match for a Carrie Joyner, age 11 and born August 1888, living with her family in Leon, Florida. There are two younger siblings, Freddie and Willie.
Observing the Joyner family in 1910, Carrie is no longer listed, but an additional daughter, Marie age 8, is listed. Marie Joyner married Nat Harden in 1921, thus becoming Marie Harden. She died at age 92 in Alachua, Florida in 1995, thus still being alive at the time her sister Carrie White died. One can only wonder if Marie read a news report about her sister but did not recognize her due to the highly (accidentally) inflated age attributed to White.
For Carrie White, she married J.E. White in September 1907 and first features in the Chattahoochee asylum in the 1920 census, aged 45, noted to be married. She was listed at 55 in 1930, 66 in 1940, 71 in 1945, and 75 in 1950. Her SSA from 1966 lists her year of birth as 1874 and date of death as 4 February 1991. The SSDI lists her lifespan as November 1874 – 4 February 1991. Both the SSA and SSDI are off by 10 days, however, as White died on 14 February 1991, according to newspaper reports from 15 February 1991.
Of note is the discrepancy between Carrie Joyner having been born in August in the 1900 census and Carrie White celebrating her birthday on 18 November. It is possible that the hospital records from when she was admitted on 19 November 1909 entered her birthday as 18 November, perhaps due to her not recalling or disclosing her date of birth. Exactly where 1874 comes from remains uncertain.
In conclusion, Carrie White was therefore likely at least a centenarian, having been born in August 1888 and dying at age 102 in February 1991.
Still, while the debunking of Carrie White’s alleged age is important to uphold an accurate validation process, the fact that she was once celebrated as the world’s oldest living person might have had a positive effect on her. A woman who had been abandoned and locked away for the vast majority of her life finally found some recognition of her tragic fate and life story.
Featured image is a photograph of Carrie White celebrating her “114th birthday” and sourced from The Palm Beach Post, 19 Nov 1988.
