New York lost the woman believed to be the city’s oldest resident when 112-year-old Etna Earl Carpenter Taylor died Monday in her Jamaica home.
Taylor lived to see three centuries, from her birth in 1890 in Manhattan through the entire 20th century up to her death in the house she and her husband built on 175th Street, according to the Daily News.
Taylor was 60 when she moved to Jamaica from Brooklyn in 1950, 36 years after she and her husband, Dan Taylor, were married, the newspaper said. Her husband died in 1976.
Taylor was described by her granddaughter as a sweet although sometimes bossy woman who kept her home, garden and lawn in meticulous order, the News reported. Her pet poodle, Buffy, shared her home with her in recent years.
Taylor worked as a seamstress in Manhattan’s Garment District, until retiring in her 60s during the 1950s.
Etna and Dan Taylor adopted three children, two of whom have died. Their daughter, Florence, now 93, lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Funeral arrangements were still being finalized Tuesday.
— Courtney Dentch
