Celebrating her 114th birthday earlier this week, Elizabeth Francis made history surrounded by five generations of loved ones.
Born in 1909, the Texas woman has surpassed being a centenarian — someone who lives to be 100 — and has spent a few years now as a supercentenarian, a person who has reached the age of 110.
Centenarians are one of the fastest-growing populations in the world, according to Pew Research Center — but even so, Francis is a standout.
After commemorating her most recent birthday, Francis holds many titles: She is the oldest person in Texas, second-oldest in the United States, the seventh in the world and the second-oldest in the world who still lives at home, Florida researcher Ben Meyers told KTRK-TV.
But the great-great-grandmother rejects the idea that she’s old.
“I’m very, very young. Look at me — I’m like a little, young chicken,” she told the station.
When asked how she feels about being 114 years old Francis replied, “I don’t know, I just thank the good Lord for keeping me.”
Sharing secrets of her longevity, Francis said that she never drank or smoked but ate “everything.”
Her family also remembered how she always grew her own vegetables and cooked homemade meals instead of eating fast food.
“Whenever you went to her house, I don’t care what day of the week, she was cooking,” her granddaughter, Ethel Harrison, said. “So, I just think that had a lot to do with it, too. Just how she took care of her body and things like that.”
But genetics also seem to be a factor in Francis’ long life.
Her sister lived to be 106 — making them among the oldest siblings on record — while her daughter, Dorothy Ray Williams, is 94, and Harrison, her granddaughter and caregiver, is 68.
Time will tell if her two other grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren also received the strong genes.
“It’s hard to believe, but it’s a blessing,” Williams said of her mom’s long life, adding that people think she’s lying when she tells them how old her mother is.
“She has been a wonderful mother and grandmother to all of us,” she said. “She has been our backbone.”