At 111, she's New York's oldest resident

NEW YORK, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Jane Gilsenan has lived in three centuries, seen 19 U.S. presidents, is New York's oldest resident, and one of the oldest people in the world, authorities say.

Gilsenan, 111, was born in New York in 1898, when Teddy Roosevelt was leading the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War, the New York Post reported Sunday.

"I'm lucky to live as long as I have so far," Gilsenan said last week in her home in a Staten Island convent. "I had nothing to do with it. It was wished on me."

Her memories date back to when she was 10 years old, Gilsenan says, learning to skate by holding the railings of a Manhattan church. She can recall what life was like during the Great Depression and remembers her brothers serving in World War II.

Never married because she "didn't meet the right guy," she worked as a legal secretary until retiring in her early 1980s, the Post said.

There are 73 people in the world older than 110, the Gerontology Research Group -- an online research group -- says. The world's oldest living person is said to be Kama Chinen, a 114-year-old Japanese woman.