Introduction
Bernice Madigan (July 24, 1899 – January 3, 2015) was an American supercentenarian who was the oldest living resident of Massachusetts, the fourth-oldest living person in the United States, and the world's fifth-oldest living person before her death. She is one of 100 centenarians in The Archon Genomics XPRIZE.
Biography
Bernice Emerson was born on July 24, 1899 in West Springfield, Massachusetts. When she was 6, she moved to Cheshire. She graduated from Adams High School in 1918, and thereafter moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked as a secretary for the Veterans Administration, then the Treasury Department.
A lifelong Republican, she attended the Inauguration of Warren G. Harding in 1921, and cited Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan as her favorite U.S. Presidents. "Reagan accomplished more for the government. Eisenhower I thought was very good in some ways in the White House. I liked them both very much." Madigan met her husband, Paul, in Washington, and they were married 51 years. Paul died in 1976. She outlived a brother, Roy Emerson, and a sister, Marilyn Emerson Martin. She returned to Cheshire from Silver Spring, Maryland in 2007.
Madigan did not take any medicine nor a daily vitamin. She died in her sleep at the age of 115 years, 163 days at 2 a.m. on January 3, 2015.