Anna Stoehr became an Internet celebrity at age 113, when she owned up to fibbing on her Facebook account so she could join the social network. It was an unpredictable turn of events for Stoehr, who was born before the Wright brothers took their historic first flight. She died Sunday at age 114.
"Anna lived alone on her farm in Potsdam, MN until she was 112," local KARE 11 TV reports. "She and her husband Ernest had farmed together. He passed away in 1998 at the age of 97."
Facebook, whose software could not (and still cannot) account for a birth date before the year 1905, "sent her a bouquet of 114 flowers for her most recent birthday," the AP reports.
Stoehr's story spread after her son Harlan, 85, went to a Verizon store to buy a phone for his mother. When she had trouble joining Facebook, she wrote the company a letter that included the line, "I'm still here."
Harlan Stoehr says his mother died in her sleep Sunday morning.
The social network wasn't the only way Stoehr embraced technology late in life. When KARE 11 spoke to her before her birthday in October, she was using an iPad to hold video chats — in German — with a friend.
"That's an aspect of my mom," Harlan told KARE in October. "She's been curious about everything all her life and continues to be curious about it."
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