happy birthday

Today is Pete Hill’s 128th (or maybe 126th) birthday.  Much to my regret, I didn’t make it to the celebration in Cooperstown, but as Ron Hill said, “History is complete.”

The mention of Pete Hill’s would-be age reminds me how my first request for his Social Security records was denied because “there is no information available to us that indicates this person is deceased”:

 

Of course, the Social Security Administration’s own files include the information that John P. Hill was born on October 12, 1884, which would have made him 124 years old on the day (in May 2009) I sent it in.  If still alive, he would have been by far the oldest person in the world at the time—in fact, he would have been the oldest person who had ever lived (since modern record-keeping began, anyway), by more than two years.

Thanks to Fred Worth, I was able to supply a copy of his death certificate and so won my appeal, receiving on July 30, 2009, Pete’s Form SS-5 and other Social Security documentation, which confirmed the identity of his family and his birthplace in Rapidan, Virginia.