Lessie Brown, oldest person in the US, dies at 114


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CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio (AP) — A family member says a 114-year-old Ohio woman who was believed to be the oldest person in the United States has died.

Lessie Brown's grandson Ronald Wilson says she died Tuesday. She had been living with her daughter in Cleveland Heights.

Brown said it was God's will that she lived so long. Others in her family attributed her long life to a diet heavy on sweet potatoes.

Brown was born in 1904 in Georgia and grew up on a farm. She moved to Cleveland with her family when she was 18 and later had five children with her husband.

She became the country's oldest person following the May 9, 2018, death of 114-year-old Delphine Gibson, of Huntingdon, Pennsylvania.

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