Published May 21, 2015
The fifth-oldest person in the world and Massachusetts's oldest resident has died.
Bernice Emerson Madigan, of Cheshire, died at a Williamstown nursing center last weekend. She was 115.
According to the Gerontology Research Group, she was the fifth-oldest person in the world.
Madigan had said her secrets to a long life included a positive attitude, no children, a hot breakfast, glass of wine, and a spoonful of honey every day.
Madigan was born in West Springfield in 1899 and moved to Cheshire in 1906. After high school graduation, she got a job at the U.S. Treasury Department and moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where she lived until moving back to western Massachusetts in 2007.
Her husband, Paul, died in 1976.
A funeral is scheduled for Saturday.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/oldest-resident-of-massachusetts-one-of-the-oldest-people-in-the-world-dies-at-age-115