Dorothy Hoffner, the centenarian who gained international adoration for skydiving at age 104 earlier this month, all while exhibiting an air of blasé disregard for the attention the feat brought her, died in her sleep overnight Sunday into Monday at her home in Chicago...
Born on Dec. 17, 1918, Ms. Hoffner last week had her life briefly transform from one of relative quiet — she loved watching reruns of “M*A*S*H” at night in the Brookdale Lake View senior living center where she lived — to one packed with calls from reporters and TV producers trying to schedule interviews.
That interest was prompted by her unusual endeavor: parachuting off a plane at such an advanced age on Oct. 1, not to prove some existential point about seizing every thrill, but simply because she wanted to. After all, the first time she had gone skydiving, at age 100, it had been fun, Ms. Hoffner said in an interview last week.
Still, it was her recent 10,000-foot descent that turned Ms. Hoffner, for many admirers, into an example of how to live life to the fullest or, at the very least, the embodiment of the belief that doing something exciting at an older age is normal.
She never married or had children, which she long believed had granted her more freedom and adventure: boat rides on the Danube in Germany, where she ate meals underneath starlight and listened to the tinkling of the water; weekend road trips in her blue Dodge Coronet; and random beach vacations in Mexico.
Among her friends, Ms. Hoffner was known for her favorite saying, a twist on a Bible verse: “I go by ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’” she said. “So I love all my neighbors. Of course, I don’t like them all.”