Aged Negro of Oskaloosa Passed Through 118 Years - 1905

YOUNG, BUSH

Posted By: Cheryl Locher Moonen (email)
Date: 2/20/2017 at 23:54:25

Dubuque Telegraph-Herald, Jan. 2, 1905

SAW WAR OF REVOLUTION
~
Aged Negro of Oskaloosa Passed
Through 118 Years of
Life in America
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Oskaloosa, Ia, Jan 2. – Oskaloosa is now the home of a man who is 118 years old, and probably the oldest man in the state. His name is Louis Young, and he has just arrived from Virginia to make his home with his daughter, Mrs. Frank Bush. He celebrated his 118th birthday a week ago and now says with pride that he is goin’ on “119.”

Mr. Young was born in Prince Edward, on Hat Creek, Tuckahoe County, Virginia, on a farm “so poor it wouldn’t sprout black-eyed peas,” in 1786. Uncle Louis has laid three wives beneath the sod, marrying the first when he was 25, and living with her forty years. “One year hence,” as he expressed it, he married again, and the third spouse was Mr. Carroll’s colored woman, Mary Ann” who lived to be his wife for twenty-seven years.

Speaking of wives it has been ascertained that Uncle Louis would not mind trying a fourth one, but designated that it must be a young girl, as he wanted no trifling old woman around him . One hundred and eighteen years old and looking for a wife. Most men are ready to give up business at 65 and expecting to die at 70. But Uncle Louis did not look old, nor act old, either. He seems to be in full possession of his facilities and sees and hears fairly well. He is full of jokes and pokes fun of you when you least expect it.