Biography
Todd was born as Lillian Clarice Todd to Robert Little Todd and Jeanie Ola Parramore. In 1939 Cox moved to Tallahassee, Florida where she lived for most of her life. In later years she drove her 1984 Sedan Deville around the neighborhood, before finally selling the car in 2009. She first got behind the wheel in 1915, when she was only 8 years old. She reportedly said:
Tallahassee is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2017, the population was 191,049, making it the 7th-largest city in the U.S state of Florida, and the 126th-largest city in the United States. The population of the Tallahassee metropolitan area was 382,627 as of 2017. Tallahassee is the largest city in the Florida Panhandle region, and the main center for trade and agriculture in the Florida Big Bend and Southwest Georgia regions.
I drove when I wasn't supposed to be driving. We were 8 or 9 years old. [1]
Cox was recognized as the oldest licensed driver in the United States in 2008 at the age of 101. [1] [2] She had renewed her license 3 months earlier, though it expired in 2011. Lillian had made a guest appearance on a Barbara Walters TV special, [3] and as the titleholder for "America's Oldest Driver", Jay Leno still wanted her to appear on The Tonight Show , though she preferred to ride in a limousine for the occasion. In 2002, she drove her Sedan Deville from Tallahassee to Houston, Texas 3 to 5 times a year, aged 95 at the time. She drove her Sedan Deville for more than 28 years, and remembers back in her youth when gas only cost 15 cents a gallon.
Barbara Jill Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. Walters is known for having hosted a variety of television programs, including Today, The View, 20/20, and the ABC Evening News. Since retirement as a full-time host and contributor, she continued to occasionally report for ABC News through 2015.
James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, and television host. After doing stand-up comedy for years, he became the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno from 1992 to 2009. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00pm ET, also on NBC.
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show currently broadcast from the NBC Studios in Rockefeller Center in New York City, the show's original location and airing on NBC since 1954. The series has been hosted by six comedians: Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, and Jimmy Fallon, and had several recurring guest hosts including Ernie Kovacs during the Steve Allen era and Joan Rivers, Garry Shandling and Jay Leno during Johnny Carson's stewardship, although the practice has been abandoned since Carson's departure, with hosts preferring reruns to showcasing potential rivals. The Tonight Show is the world's longest-running talk show, and the longest-running, regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States. It is the third-longest-running show on NBC, after the news-and-talk shows Today and Meet the Press.
Cox's husband and their only daughter Carolyn (1927 – 2008) were both deceased. She was a member of First Baptist Church. She moved to Meadows Place, Texas after her 103rd birthday and lived there in an assisted living facility. [4] For her 105th birthday the mayor named February 22 as Lillian Cox Day. [5] Upon reaching the age of 110 years, she became a supercentenarian on February 22, 2017. [6]
The First Baptist Church in America is the First Baptist Church of Providence, Rhode Island, also known as the First Baptist Meetinghouse. It is the oldest Baptist church congregation in the United States, founded by Roger Williams in Providence, Rhode Island in 1638. The present church building was erected in 1774–75 and held its first meetings in May 1775. It is located at 75 North Main Street in Providence's College Hill neighborhood and is a National Historic Landmark.
Meadows Place is a city located in Fort Bend County in the U.S. state of Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the city population was 4,660.
In the few years up until her passing, the Mayor Charles Jessup declared her birthday as "Lillian Cox Day". She died in Meadows Place, Texas at The Hampton Assisted Living Centre on August 10, 2018, aged 111 years, 169 days. Her burial took place in her longtime home of Tallahassee, Florida. [7]