Longevity factor: At 116, she has outlived generations of loved ones
“When she hit her hundredth birthday, the whole community was kind of in awe, and she became a bit of a local celebrity,” said Mayor Saprina Rodriguez, who at 52 is less than half Ms. Ceccarelli’s age.
Edith Ceccarelli
NEW YORK: When Edith Ceccarelli was born in February 1908, Theodore Roosevelt was president, Oklahoma had just become the nation’s 46th state and women did not yet have the right to vote. At 116, Ms. Ceccarelli is the oldest known person in the United States and the second oldest on Earth. She has lived through two World Wars, the advent of the Ford Model T — and the two deadliest pandemics in American history.
For most of that time, she has lived in one place: Willits, a village tucked in California’s redwood forests that was once known for logging but now may be better known for Ms. Ceccarelli.
At Willits City Hall, where 100-foot redwoods tower overhead, a gold-framed photograph of Ms. Ceccarelli sits in a display case. Last year, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors proclaimed February 5 as a day to celebrate the county’s favorite daughter.
“When she hit her hundredth birthday, the whole community was kind of in awe, and she became a bit of a local celebrity,” said Mayor Saprina Rodriguez, who at 52 is less than half Ms. Ceccarelli’s age.
Nestled in a valley surrounded by forested peaks in rural Mendocino County, in California’s North Coast region, Willits prospered from its booming lumber industry when Ms. Ceccarelli was a little girl. But that boom is long gone, and Willits remains a small, working-class community of about 5,000 people.
Because it is about 30 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, Willits has never attracted the tourists who flock to coastal destinations like Mendocino and Fort Bragg, with their Instagrammable wineries and cottages perched on seaside bluffs, along with whale-watching opportunities. But neither of those places has Ms. Ceccarelli.
On Sunday, Willits hosted its annual celebration for its most treasured resident, who watched from the porch of her care home. It was raining, the beginning of another atmospheric river — what they just called downpours for most of Ms. Ceccarelli’s life — but nobody in Willits gave a thought to cancelling the annual festivities.
A parade of flashing police cruisers and fire trucks passed by. Then a garbage truck. Sedans adorned with garlands, balloons and flowers followed, ferrying residents who waved and sang to their beloved Edie. “She’s a local icon,” said Suzanne Picetti-Johnson, a longtime Willits resident who had donned a rain jacket and beanie and was directing an S.U.V. with “Happy Sweet 116!” scrawled on its rear window. “She’s always been just a total delight, and we’re thrilled to celebrate her one more year.”
On February 5, 1908, Edith Recagno was delivered by her aunt in a house in Willits that her father had built by hand. The home had no electricity or running water, so a hand-dug well provided the family with drinking water and, in lieu of a refrigerator, a cool place to hang milk and meat.
She was the first of seven children born to Agostino and Maria Recagno, who were Italian immigrants drawn to Mendocino County by opportunity. Willits, where bright green moss covers tree trunks and giant ferns unfurl along the banks of icy creeks, was settled by pioneering ranchers in the 1850s as fortune-seekers flocked to California during the Gold Rush.
