Became the world's oldest living person, living to the age of 116 years and 25 days. She also joined the ranks of the one hundred oldest people to have ever lived.
She and her ten siblings grew up on a farm in Montrose, Georgia, and spent their youth harvesting peanuts, yams, and cotton. In her thirties, she settled in Inkster, Michigan.
Although she never learned to drive a car, she remained active in her later years and especially enjoyed making quilts and gambling at casinos.
In 1936, she began her more than fifty-year marriage to Alfred Talley. In 1937, the couple welcomed a daughter named Thelma.