Vester HEMM currently the county's oldest resident

HEMM, LEWIS, ALLMAN, KELLY

Posted By: Joey Stark
Date: 1/5/2009 at 20:42:28

"The Fairfield Ledger", Monday, December 29, 2008, Front Page and Page 7

Oldest man in U.S. dies at age 112
>>>Vester HEMM, 103, is the oldest known Jefferson County resident.

... According to the Iowa Department of Elder Affairs, the title of the oldest Jefferson County resident is held by 103-year-old Vester HEMM, a long-time resident of Douds who now lives at Parkview Care Center in Fairfield.

HEMM was born Sept. 16, 1905, in Eldon, the son of Lou and Liza LEWIS HEMM. He married Letta ALLMAN in 1926. She died in 1993.

HEMM, who said he has "done a little bit of everything," farmed, worked in the Strother Mine underground shaft and gardened while rearing six children and a grandson he and his wife had taken into their home as a baby.

In May, 2005, after HEMM fell and broke his leg, he moved into Nelson Nursing Home where his youngest daughter Sandy KELLY was a certified medication aide. After Nelson's closing this year, he moved to Parkview Care Center.

HEMM has attributed his 103 years to being "ornery," but KELLY has thought that her father's steady diet of fish, garlic and onions coupled with hard work probably helped.....

[Text below is from Page 7]

.... An Iowa State University research team is looking for the secrets of longevity.

The researchers with ISU's Gerontology Program are studying Iowa centenarians to see what they can learn about living a longer life.

Researchers from ISU's Gerontology Program began the three-year-initiative last year.

The director of ISU's Gerontology Program and the principal investigator for the project, Peter Martin, says centenarians are the fastest-growing population in the United States, and Iowa has the country's second-highest proportion of centenarians with 950.

The ISU researchers spent the last year surveying 136 Iowa centenarians in phase one of the study and Martin says the project will continue next year.

*Transcribed for genealogy purposes; I have no relation to the person(s) mentioned.

[Ed. note: The omitted portions of the article dealt with the passing of the nation's oldest man, 112-year-old George Francis, and four older folks still living. They were not detailed here because of their distance from Jefferson County in particular and Iowa in general.]