WEST SALEM TOWNSHIP – Naomi Whitehead of Greenville has been recognized by the Gerontology Research Group as the oldest living person in the United States at 114 years old. The supercentenarian was born Naomi Washington on Sept. 26, 1910.
She married Sylvester Whitehead, and they had three sons, Parrish L., Elbert and Sylvester Jr. On Aug.
22, 2022, following the death of 111-year-old Lenara Carey, she became the oldest known living person in Pennsylvania. On Oct. 22, 2024, following the death of Elizabeth Francis, 115, she became the oldest living person in the United States, according to the Gerontology Research Group.
Whitehead has 12 grandchildren, 28 great-grandchildren, 49 great-great-grandchildren and three great-great-great-grandchildren. Whitehead outlived a dozen other siblings. Her husband, Sylvester Whitehead, whom she wed in 1930, died in the 1980s.
She also outlived her three sons. Whitehead, a former Sharon resident now living at St. Paul’s Senior Living Community in West Salem Township, remembered her earlier days when interviewed by The Herald last year for her 113th birthday.
“I was born on a Georgia farm,” Whitehead said. “I picked cotton and tobacco.” When she was 2, the Titanic sank, and the 19th Amendment to the U.
S. Constitution allowing women to vote didn’t become effective until 1919. Horses were still the main engine for transportation and Ford didn’t introduce its revolutionary assembly line until 1913.
While working on the farm, tri.
