Grace Clawson

Grace M. Taylor Clawson (November 15, 1887 - May 28, 2002) was a supercentenarian who was born in England, but emigrated to Montreal as an infant, and in 1901 to the United States, where she lived in Illinois and later Florida. Clawson is notable as the then "oldest living American", this status having been retroactively recognized following the death of Maude Farris-Luse. If Kamato Hongo was, as has been postulated, a year younger than claimed, then Clawson would have become the world's oldest person at this time, succeeded by fellow immigrant Adelina Domingues upon her own death.

Clawson's age became confused when, for a time, she was given up for adoption. As an adult, she thought she was born in 1889. In 1917, she married Ray Clawson in Chicago. They had has two daughters, five grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren and 11 great-great-grandchildren.

In 2001, researchers located the original 1887 birth record of Grace Taylor in London, which was written in 1887, proving that she was in fact two years older.

Clawson's family had planned to apply to the Guinness Book of World Records for recognition of her oldest living American status, but she died before the application documents arrived. Her age was posthumously verified by the Gerontology Research Group, and later accepted as valid by the International Database on Longevity.

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