Death has come after more than 110 years to a woman who was on her way to being verified as the state's current oldest living person.
Services were held Thursday for Hermina Wahlin, who lived in the west-central community of Evansville for much of her life and died there last week.
At the time of Wahlin's death, her age was awaiting verification from the most authoritative organization that tracks the world's oldest people.
"Hermina's case looks good" for the claim of being the oldest Minnesotan at the time of her death, Robert D. Young, director of the U.S.-based Gerontology Research Group's research and database division, said Wednesday night.
Wahlin was on the "pending cases list," Young said. "This means that her claim was probably true, based on census and other documents, but the case had not been processed yet."
Wahlin's daughter Shirley Hart said Wednesday that her mother's "memory was pretty good until the last week. She just slipped away."
The Minnesota record for the oldest resident belongs to Catherine Hagel, who died in 2008 at age 114 years, 8 days. She was the third-oldest person in the world at the time of her death.
The oldest person born in Minnesota was Walter Breuning, at 114 years, 205 days. Breuning moved to Montana in 1918 and died there in 2011. He was the world's oldest man at the time of his death.
