112 not out! Oldest woman in South America

May 16, 2008 News

Today, Ms. Matilda Lewis will be 112 years old, making her the oldest living person in Guyana and in South America. She is only one of 76 people older than 110 years on the planet.

But as the years build up, Ms. Lewis says that while she is alive and thanks God for that, she is becoming burdensome to the people who take care of her.

While none of them mind, she said, she feels very sorry for them.

“I can’t do much for myself and I know they don’t mind taking care of me but I feel very helpless at times,” she said as she sat in her wheelchair.

Lewis has been living at the Salvation Army Women’s home, Bent and Haley Streets, Wortmanville, for the past 16 years.

Yesterday, members of St. Andrew’s Kirk held a service for her at the Salvation Army home where she now resides.

Dressed in a white shirt and a blue long skirt with blue slippers on her feet, Ms. Lewis, while being wheeled out of her room began signing. “She is only 71 today.”

Despite her age, Ms. Lewis still has a good sense of humour and she had all her visitors laughing yesterday.
“In his own time, God will take me. But I have reached the stage now of ‘once a man twice a child’. I never thought I would have lived so long,” Ms. Lewis said.

The elderly woman, who is now blind, was never married and never had any children.

“The pain in the joints is too much now but only God knows what he is doing, by his grace I am still alive.”
Speaking with Kaieteur News the matron of the home, said that Ms. Lewis is in good health despite her age.
She said that Ms. Lewis does not have any major health problems. The toll of old age is her only complaint.
Happy Birthday to Ms. Lewis from the management and staff of Kaieteur News!