City's Oldest Person Passes Away

Virginia Call, Chicago's oldest citizen, passed away yesterday at the age of 111 or 115, depending on who you believe. Call was the center of attention last January when, after having let her voter registration lapse, she re-registered to vote so that she could vote for Barack Obama. Call grew up in Mississippi, where her family said she was born in January 1894, though the state didn't set up birth registries until 1912 and didn't require birth certificates until 1933. According to WGN Radio, "The Gerontology Research Group, which keeps records on the oldest people in the world, found a Yazoo County, Mississippi census from 1910 with Call's maiden name, Virginia Green, which indicated she was 12 years old at the time." That would have made her 111 when she passed away. Call moved to Chicago in 1951, following family members. [WBBM, WGN]