Submitted by: Dan Rich
Mary Parr
Feb. 1, 1889 – Oct. 30, 2002
South Bend Tribune 10/31/2002
Mishawaka native dies at 113
Mary Parr was believed to be nation's oldest person
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -- Mary Parr, a Mishawaka native believed to be the oldest person in the United States and second-oldest in the world, died Tuesday at Suncoast Manor, a retirement community where she had lived since 1965. She was 113.
Parr was determined to be the oldest resident of the United States by the Gerontology Research Group, a nonprofit organization which studies aging. She succeeded Adelina Domingues, a California woman who died at 114 on Aug. 21.
Parr, born Feb. 1, 1889, in Mishawaka, was the world's second-oldest person at the time of her death, the group said. Only Kamato Hongo, a 115-year-old Japanese woman, had an authenticated age older than Parr's.
Parr often told the secret of her longevity: Never getting married.
Parr spent many years working for the American Red Cross in Cape May, N.J., first as a volunteer during World War I and then as a paid employee. She also worked for the South Carolina Tuberculosis Organization, then moved to Asheville, N.C., to care for her then-retired parents.
Her sister, Lillian Prine, died at Suncoast Manor in 1991 at the age of 100. Parr's parents both lived into their 90s.