"Worlds Oldest Blogger" Dies at 108
Olive Riley, known as the worlds oldest blogger, died this past weekend. Born in 1899, Olive posted regularly on her blog titled All About Olive for about a year and a half (the blog is currently not working). Since that time, she's posted over 70 entries where she shared stories about her life over the last 108 years. A temporary blog, set up by a friend of Olive's, has her last (74th) post and actually announces her death. Since her blog is not working right now, here's a link Olive's blog on the Internet Archive showing posts from Feb 2007 to Aug 2007.
Olive sounded like a wonderful woman who in reality created an incredible resource for a future family historian in her family. I mean, how many 108 old people are regularly writing stories about their lives? At least in my family, I'm finding not many people my age wrote, or are writing, about their lives...I guess that would make family history too easy. What Olive wrote about are the types of things I'm really looking for in my research...I'm not so much interested in building the family tree as I am in finding the stories inside of it.
I wish I would have learned about her blog while she was still alive.
fM,
Her blog is back up and running! What I find interesting about the whole story is that a 109 year old woman was a full participant in the "new media" of today, and understood exactly what she was doing - she got it. Most people get stuck in their ways around my age, but she sure didn't...I only hope I can age like her and remain so openminded.
Tim
Posted by: Tim Agazio | July 16, 2008 at 04:01 PM
Olive was one of the blocks in my Quilt of Genealogy Bloggers. I am so sorry to hear that she has died, but she lived a wonderful life. And she shared it.
Her posts contained videos and Olive singing. I loved the story about the argument she and her sister had over her sister running off with a man. They were both over 100 and he was 90 something as I remember.
I hope the unavailability of the site is only temporary and that they keep it running for posterity.
fM
Posted by: footnoteMaven | July 14, 2008 at 07:09 PM