John F. Kennedy died on Emma Tillman's 71st birthday, Nov. 22, 1963. Nov. 22, 2006, just a day before Thanksgiving, is Emma's 114th birthday. In October 2006, the family held a pre-birthday celebration to mark her inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records 2007, where she is listed as the sixth-oldest person in the world. But since the book was published, two of those "above" her on the list have already died, so she's now the fourth-oldest person.
Emma Faust Tillman was born on Nov. 22, 1893, to sharecroppers on the Faust Plantation in Gibsonville, N.C. Alphonso, Emma's father, was the son of a female slave and the plantation owner, Cane Faust, and, as was common in that day, he took Faust as his last name. Emma's mother, Martha Gibson Faust, of Native American heritage, was also born into slavery.
When the family moved to Glastonbury, Conn., in 1900, Emma was 6 years old. She was one of 23 children, some of whom died at birth or in their early years. But several of Emma's siblings lived past 100, including a sister, Ava, who died at 102 in 1983, and a brother, Eugene, who died at 108 in 1996.
At Glastonbury High, Emma was the only black girl in the school, but she didn't encounter prejudice until she tried to find a job. She had trained to become a bookkeeper, but no one would hire her. So she took work as a housekeeper. Ava did the same; they both earned as little as 50 cents a day.
More than 70 years later, in 1980, John B. Stewart, Ava's grandson and Emma's grandnephew, earned the distinction of becoming the first African-American to serve as fire chief in Hartford, Conn.
Stewart says that Emma, as the oldest person in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in the city, is known not just as the "mother" of the church but also as the mother of the AME Conference. She has belonged to the Hartford church for 80 years.
"She always loved the Lord and prayed me through my bad times," says Stewart's son, John L. Stewart III. When the younger Stewart found the Lord for himself and eventually answered the call to become a pastor/officer in The Salvation Army, Emma was thrilled.
"If I come and visit her, and I'm not in my Salvation Army uniform, she wants me to go put it on," says Major Stewart, Emma's great-grandnephew. The elder Stewart serves on the advisory board for a Salvation Army church in Hartford's North End.
Says Barbara Harris, a great-niece, Emma is known for "loving God and the people." Asked if she would want to live as long as Emma, Harris says, "Only if I could be in good shape and have the same kind of mind [as Emma]."
The day of the Guinness celebration, family members gathered at the Riverside Rehabilitation and Health Center in East Hartford, Conn., where Emma took up residence just a few years ago. Finally, a nurse wheeled Emma, dressed in a white lace blouse and black silk skirt, into the room. Gradually, as family members took turns paying respects to their matriarch, Emma drew close to a large sheet cake proclaiming her status in Guinness.
Daisy Asquith, interviewing Emma for a London Channel 4 TV special on the world's oldest people, bent down close to ask questions into Emma's ear. But Emma had a question of her own.
"Who made the cake?" she wanted to know. In her day, Emma was widely known for her skills as a baker.
She may be hard of hearing, but Emma's mind is still sharp, and she's as healthy as someone her age can be. Scott Emmons of the Riverside Center says, "She's very stable. All she takes is a multivitamin every day."
Emma expects to be around for a while longer. Back in 2005, she told a local paper, "I'm going to live to be 120."
If she does, she will be listed in Guinness again—perhaps this time as the oldest person in the world.
John Stewart, the former fire chief, says that when anyone asks Emma the secret to her longevity, she says, "Ask the Man upstairs!"
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