Maryland’s oldest resident dies at 111

Mary Payne Franklin, of Chestertown, was Maryland’s oldest resident, according to the Gerontology Research Group. COURTESY

Mary Payne Franklin, who was Maryland’s oldest living resident, passed away peacefully Sept. 12 at home in Chestertown. She was 111.

In an interview with The Baltimore Sun in July, Franklin — who spent her days playing scrabble and doing crossword puzzles — said, “I’m going to live to be 150.” Two months later, after dinner, she closed her eyes for a catnap and died in her sleep.

Funeral services were held at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Centreville. Franklin was buried in the church cemetery beside her husband, William, who died in 1985.

Her passing means the oldest Marylander is now Dorothy Mildred Mimms, 111, of Hyattsville, according to the Gerontology Research Group (GRG), a nonprofit international firm that validates the ages of super-centenarians. Mimms was born July 5, 1913, in Tennessee.

The oldest living person in the world was Maria Branyas Morera, of Spain, who died at 117 in August. The oldest person to ever live was Jeanne Calment, of France, who was 122 when she died in 1997.

Franklin’s death shocked Beverly Emore, her caretaker and companion for 34 years.

“That morning I got her up and we sang ‘You are my sunshine,’ like always,” said Emore, 73. “Mom-mom had breakfast and dinner and talked. She was working on a puzzle when she just closed her eyes, as she often does for a few minutes … and was gone. It was peaceful, but heartbreaking.

“It was like losing my own mother,” Emore said of Franklin, who had no children. “You thought she would live forever because she told you she would. But this is God’s way.”

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