The attorneys at the Jurewitz Law Group Injury & Accident Lawyers in San Diego recently read a news story that made us believe that it is never too late to right a wrong in order to assure that a person gets proper credit for a deed or a milestone.
This story involves Adelina Dominguez of Spring Valley who died on August 21, 2002 at 114 years old. At the time, the Guinness Book of World records had touted the San Diego county resident as the oldest living person in the United States.
She was born in 1888 on the Cape Verde Islands off West Africa (she was Portuguese, but later became a naturalized American citizen). It boggles the mind when you consider that she was born before the invention of radio and the successful first flight of the Wright brothers’ new-fangled airplane.
A very religious person, she attributed her long life to not playing cards and never going to a beauty parlor. “I’ve never been vain,” she told a reporter at the San Diego Union-Tribune before her death. According to reports, she didn’t smoke or drink, never fractured a bone, never took medications and still wasn’t completely grey at the time of her death. She lived alone until she was 107.
While she was living, it had been reported that there was a woman in Japan who actually was older than her, which technically made that woman the world’s oldest living person (and Adelina the second oldest living person in the world). However, in 2010, a Belgian researcher looked into the Japanese woman’s records (yes, there are people who do that) and he found that the Japanese woman was actually about 6 years younger than Adelina, which briefly made Adelina the Oldest Person in the World (for nearly four months until her death.)
Guinness changed the record in its 2012 edition and Adelina now has posthumously received the credit she deserves.
Hey, credit where credit is due we say.
There must be something in the water in San Diego because a Carmel Valley woman turned 113 this past July 15 — making her the current 20th oldest living person in the world.
Now, we aren’t saying that you’ll live that long if you reside in beautiful and healthy San Diego, but then again, we’re not saying that you won’t either.
Just a little food for thought.
