PALM SPRINGS, Calif. —When longtime Indian Wells resident Clarence “Larry” Matthews turned 110 years old on May 1, he joined an elite demographic known as “supercentenarian," the designation given to people who live to — or past — their 110th year.
The next day, a birthday party was held in his honor at Indian Wells Country Club, where Matthews has lived since 1972. Close to 100 people gathered for lunch in the clubhouse and then watched Matthews, clad in the same light green jacket he wore to celebrate his 100th birthday, blow out numeral “110” candles sitting atop a yellow cake covered in white and chocolate frosting.
At the time, Matthews was considered the second-oldest person in the U.S., according to Robert D. Young, director, Gerontology Research Group, Supercentenarian Research and Database Division.
Two days after Matthews’ birthday, the oldest known living World War II vet, Frank Levingston — who turned 110 on Nov. 13 – passed away. On Tuesday, Levingston — who served in the Army in Europe and participated in the Allied invasion of Italy — was laid to rest in his hometown of Cotton Valley, La.
Curious about Matthews’ official ranking in the category of oldest living males in the U.S., I reached out to the Gerontology Research Group and received the following email response from Young:
“Regarding Frank Levingston, the GRG did have a 1910 census match that indicated he was likely the age claimed, so we considered him to unofficially be the oldest man in America from April 19, 2016, until his own death May 3, 2016,” Young wrote.
Felix Simoneaux Jr., 110, also of Louisiana, who was older than Levingston by about six months, died April 19.
“That leaves Clarence Matthews, born May 1, 1906, as the oldest known man in America whose age likely can be validated."
Young added that there is a man who lives in the Miami area who has an unvalidated claim of 112 years old.
The title of oldest living person in the world passed from New York resident Susannah Mushatt Jones — who died Thursday at 116 years, 312 days — to Emma Morano-Martinuzzi, 116 years, 166 days, of Italy. Morano-Martinuzzi, who was born Nov. 29, 1899, is the last known person in the world to have been born in the 1800s.
The Gerontology Research Group (originally the Los Angeles Gerontology Group) was co-founded in 1990 by physician L. Stephen Coles, a lecturer in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles who died of pancreatic cancer in 2014 at the age of 73, and H. Stephen Kaye, a professor at the Institute for Health and Aging and the department of social and behavioral sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.
The group, now a broad global network, is comprised of researchers from a variety of fields who track, investigate and attempt to validate supercentenarian claims in their respective region of the world.
According to the Gerontology Research Group website, verified supercentenarians have multiple documents throughout the course of their lives that can be used to prove their age, including, at minimum, one early-life document, one mid-life document and one late-life document. These documents must be reviewed to show “sufficient matching points in order for the case to be determined to be validated.”
Birth and death certificates and census data are among the documents used for verification.
Less than one-third of supercentenarian claims to age 110-plus are validated; only 2% of those who claim to be 115-plus are validated, according to the group.
“It’s really a blessing that he’s lived this long because he’s happy,” said Matthews’ daughter, Susan Rosas, 78, of Santa Barbara. His son Steve, who’s also in his 70s, lives in Colorado. “He tells me he still likes to look out at the sun and look at the birds in the trees. He still enjoys life.”
