Welcome to Running: A FEVER. I’m Michael Davis. This is a show about lovin’ life and livin’ long. If that’s what you’re looking for, you’ve come to the right place.

Speaking of livin’ long. Well, you now know that this episode is about Sarah Knauss, the third-longest-lived person ever. You may be aware that I previously published an episode about her, number 169, in 2019. If you’d like to check it out, you can visit RunningAFEVER.com/169, but you don’t have to, as I’ll recap what we covered in that episode here. I’m doing another episode for the same reason I did a 2nd episode on Jeanne Calment. There is now more information available, and I wanted to publish an update to share it with you.

Who is Sarah Knauss? She is number three on the list of the oldest verified people. You can always find the most up-to-date list on Wikipedia, and I will, of course, link that page in the blog post at http://RunningAFEVER.com/425. Sarah also has her own Wikipedia page. Back when I did episode 169, she was the second oldest, but she was overtaken in 2022 by Kane Tanaka, who is now number two, ahead of Sarah by only 10 days. But she is still the oldest American ever.

Sarah Knauss was born on the 24th of September 1880. She died on December 30, 1999, forty-eight hours before the turn of the century. She lived 119 years and 97 days, and is one of only three people to live to the age of 119. The Gerontology Research Group verified Sarah’s age from census records. Though the 1890 census records were destroyed by fire, the 1891 census referred to the 1890 results, which listed a ten-year-old Sarah Clark. She was listed as nineteen in the January 1900 US Census, and her marriage record, dated August 1901, lists her age as twenty-one. Her age is mentioned without contradiction in subsequent censuses from 1910 and 1930. She preceded the adding machine, the camera, local anesthesia, the ballpoint pen, and the submarine. She was thirteen when Henry Ford built the first car, and thirty-two when the Titanic sank. She was in her eighties when the Vietnam War broke out. She was eighty-eight when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

Recently (well, it was five years ago, but it wasn’t available when I recorded the earlier episode), a sixteen-minute video was released featuring an interview with Sarah conducted in the 1990s. She was 98 at the time. In it, she was very talkative and wanted to talk about everything she could remember in some detail. The interviewer had to bring her back to the subject at hand several times. She spoke of her childhood. She talked about the railroad. And traveling by sleigh. She had to go several miles every day to get the mail, sometimes on horseback, sometimes on foot. She talked about people coming through by stagecoach and bringing news. There was no telephone, radio, TV, or internet, of course. People mainly communicated by writing letters.

Due to the difficulties of travel, people who came to visit would typically stay for at least two weeks. No one ever came just for a weekend. They brought plenty of luggage. She thought it was a wonderful world we live in today, with all the technology available, but said that we are no happier today. She recalled that when she was young, she had everything she needed, and people were very friendly. It was a good life, and family was important in that. She said that family life wasn’t what it used to be. Children seek more independence. She is concerned about the youth of today being patriotic and understanding the greatness of this country.

She spent her whole life in Pennsylvania steel country and was proud of how they made the materials that built the country, especially the railroads. When she came to Lancaster, there were three cars in town. Railroads were a primary mode of transportation. They had a marvelous trolley system for the first thirty years of the twentieth century. If you went to Boston or New York, that was a long trip. A trip to Florida was a three-day trip. Sarah had never taken an airplane flight in her life and had never driven a car.

She was born in Hollywood, Hazel Township, Luzerne, Pennsylvania, and died in Allentown. Her husband was Abraham Lincoln Knauss, who, appropriately, was a republican politician. Their only child lived to be 101. However, when she died, there were six generations spanning from Sarah, who was 119, to her 4-year-old great-great-great-grandson. She also had a grandson, three great-granddaughters, and five great-great-grandchildren. All six generations were featured together in a photograph for Life magazine in 1998, when Sarah was 118.

She worked as an insurance office manager and was also a homemaker. Although her family was one of the first in her town to own a car, she never learned to drive one. Although she was around at the time of the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight, she also never flew in an airplane.

According to one article, she was a renowned storyteller. She apparently liked transportation, as she claimed to have seen the last horse-drawn trolley in Allentown, where she spent most of her life after moving there upon her marriage, and the last electric trolley, as well as the last steam-driven locomotive in service in Allentown.

Her grandson and others said Sara was a very quiet woman. She enjoyed playing bridge with a group of women from Allentown. During World War II, she did her part by rolling bandages for wounded soldiers. An accomplished seamstress, Sara used a foot-powered sewing machine until 1940, when her family gave her a powered one. She also did a lot of needlework, some of which still survives in the homes of her descendants. She was a church member in Allentown and attended Bible study classes at her nursing home.
When she was told she was the oldest woman, she said, “So what?”

Quality of Life:

In 1995, Sarah said she enjoyed life because she still had her health and could do the things she wanted to. She lived her last 9 years in the Phoebe Home nursing home, along with her daughter, who was 96 at the time of Sara’s death. She died peacefully in her sleep, sitting up in her chair in her room, with no known illness. She was almost completely deaf when she died. She used a wheelchair. It was said that she “always had a smile on her face.” She sewed her last quilt in 1987, when she was 107, but continued to hem clothes for the family right up until her death. She went to the hairdresser’s every week, up until her death, and wore her hair in a French twist. She had a relatively youthful appearance, as evident in photographs of her, even in her later years. On her 119th birthday, she said she did not make a wish when she blew out the candles. She got out of bed every day and loved doing things, especially when there were children involved. On her 119th birthday, she got up at 6:30 am and couldn’t wait to get out of bed. She said, “A hundred nineteen? I just can’t be a hundred nineteen.” That day, she wore an ivory crocheted dress, an ivory cashmere sweater, and pearls. Marcella Moyer Schick, executive director of the Phoebe-Devitt Homes Foundation, who alerted Guinness about Knauss and backed up the oldest claim with marriage and Census records, said, “She obviously is a very elderly woman, but she continues to get out of bed every day and goes to activities, especially things that have to do with children. She loves to see the children.” Her favorite television channel was the QVC shopping network.

Diet:

Called a chocoholic, Sara ate chocolate every day until her death. On her 119th birthday, she ate crab patty, a butterscotch sundae, and chocolate turtles. And of course, birthday cake, which was chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.

Her Secret for Longevity:

Keep busy, work hard, and don’t worry about how old you are. She also said she didn’t let anything upset her.

References:
http://RunningAFEVER.com/169
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_verified_oldest_people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Knauss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEOrb-EtsZg
https://tinyurl.com/raf-6-generations-photo
https://grg.org/knauss119.htm
https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/L662-CBF/sarah-deremer-clark-1880-1999
https://gohighbrow.com/sarah-knauss-developing-inner-calm/