World's second-oldest person dies at age 113

BRUNSWICK, Ga. --- A woman considered to be the second-oldest person in the world has died at age 113.

Beatrice Farve died Monday in Brunswick, her daughter, Joan Farve, said Tuesday.

She became the second-oldest person this month with the death of 115-year-old Maria de Jesus of Portugal, said Robert Young, a senior gerontology consultant for the Guinness Book of World Records .

Joan Farve described her mother as "a very soft, smiling lady" who always stood her ground.

Ms. Farve was healthy her whole life, rarely going to the doctor and never taking medicine, her daughter said.

"She was a very pleasant and private person," said Joan Farve, who lives in Southfield, Mich., but stayed with her mother in her southeast Georgia home for months at a time during the last years of her life.

Joan Farve said her mother died the way she wanted to: in her sleep at the Brunswick home she'd maintained since she was 21.

"She's up in heaven with my father," her daughter said.

Ms. Farve was born Beatrice Scarlett in Camden County in 1895. Her family says she sold beauty products until she was 100. She married Dennis Farve in 1921 and had five children. They are all still living, Joan Farve said, declining to give her own age.

Funeral plans are pending.

The world's oldest person is 114-year-old Gertrude Baines of Los Angeles, Mr. Young said. Ms. Baines was born in Georgia on April 6, 1894, but spent most of her life in Ohio.