Famed doctor celebrates 113th birthday

By Christian Boone

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

One day after Walton County resident Besse Cooper became the oldest person in the world, Georgia's second most senior citizen celebrated her 113th year.

Enlarge photo

Family photo Leila Denmark and grandson Steve Hutcherson celebrate her 113th birthday with pie.

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Leila Denmark, who practiced medicine into her 100s, marked the occasion Tuesday at her daughter's home in Athens -- roughly 25 miles from Cooper's residence -- with a slice of sweet potato pie from Atlanta's S&S Cafeteria.

Denmark, credited with helping develop the whooping cough vaccine, has abstained from sugar for most of her life.

"Mother always had a sweet tooth. She just never gave into it," said daughter Mary Hutcherson, who now takes care of her mother.

Steve Hutcherson says his grandmother has lived by two rules: "Love what you do and eat right."

Those rules have served Denmark better than her genes. Her mother died when she was just 45; Denmark's father passed away at age 65, Mary Hutcherson said. And many of the doctor's 11 siblings suffered from heart disease.

Outside of a minor heart attack when she was 99, Denmark has maintained good health for all but the last few years, her daughter said.

"I like to say she had 110-1/2 good years," Mary Hutcherson said. Now, "she can't do a thing for herself."

Denmark lived on her own in Alpharetta until she was 106 -- three years after she stopped practicing medicine. She graduated from the Medical College of Georgia at a time when schools such as Emory University weren't admitting female students. Emory later named Denmark the first staff physician at Henrietta Egleston Hospital when it opened in 1928.

Denmark is now the 11th oldest person in the world and sixth oldest in the United States, according to the Gerontology Research Group. Of the globe's 85 most senior citizens, 80 are women.