Charlotte Benkner

Charlotte Enterlein Benkner (November 16, 1889 – May 14, 2004) was a German American supercentenarian and the oldest verified living person from November 2003 until sufficient documentation was found to validate the age of Ramona Trinidad Iglesias-Jordan of Puerto Rico in March 2004. The subsequent recognition of María Capovilla of Ecuador in December 2005 moved Benkner down to third place at the time, but she still holds the record for the oldest verified German-born person.

Benkner was born in Leipzig, Germany, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1896. She grew up in Peekskill, New York, where her family ran the Albert Hotel, and as a young woman once met then President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt.

On her 1908 marriage to Karl Benkner, she moved west, living in Pennsylvania and Ohio before retiring to Arizona. Already a supercentenarian and the oldest person in Arizona, Benkner returned to Ohio to live in North Lima. She became the oldest recognized person in the United States when 114-year-old Elena Slough died in October 2003. She lived with her sister Tillie Hare (the youngest of the siblings), whom she once cared for when their parents were running the hotel, until Tillie died, just two weeks short of becoming a centenarian, on January 25, 2004.

Benkner survived her sister by only four months, dying at age 114 years 180 days after she was briefly hospitalized in Youngstown, Ohio, and was buried in Peekskill.