Maggie Renfro

Who was Maggie Renfro?

Maggie Mae Thornton Renfro was an American supercentenarian who was, at 114, the third-oldest living person in the United States and the oldest person in Louisiana until her death on January 22, 2010. Renfro was also the fourth-oldest person in the world and the oldest African-American person from the death of Gertrude Baines, until her own passing. Renfro claimed she was born in 1894, which would have made her the oldest person in the world at the time of her death. The United States Census of 1900, however, places her as a four-year-old, born in November 1895; the 1910 census lists Renfro as aged 14 in April 1910, meaning she was born in 1895. Her social security record also listed her as born on November 14, 1895.

She was born in Athens in southern Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, the fourth of eleven children of Wylie and Dellie Thornton. At the age of 19, she became a cook for a road crew. Soon afterward, she moved to Madisonville, the seat of Madison County east of Bryan, Texas, and later to Houston, where she met her husband Rudy. The two had no children, and, following his death in 1971, Renfro moved to Minden, the seat of Webster Parish, near her native Athens, where she lived until her death. She attributed her longevity to being "a good servant for God." "Love everybody; treat everybody right," she once said. She also never drank nor smoked. Renfro enjoyed good health even in advancing age according to her niece and caretaker, Mattie Ellis. "I feel good," Renfro said in December 2007. "Nothing hurts me right now, and I'm not sick."