At 104 years old, Dorothy Hoffner made history on October 1 when she tandem jumped out of a plane in Illinois. She passed away just over a week later.
She was discovered dead on Monday morning, having passed away in her sleep sometime the previous night, according to Joe Conant, a friend and nurse at the senior center where she resided. Hoffner, according to Conant, “was unrelenting. She simply kept moving, according to a Tuesday story from The Associated Press. She was not the type of person to take afternoon naps or skip out on events like dinners or functions. She was constantly present and available. She never stopped, according to Conant.
Her initial jump
She had already jumped once before on October 1, 2019, when she was 100 years old. Conant revealed his interest in skydiving to her over a dinner conversation they were having.
She told him, “That sounds really interesting,” according to The New York Times. They both jumped in the next year.
She seems perplexed that people were so interested in her most recent jump. Even so, she was open to speaking with journalists. She remarked, “Floating down, it’s so smooth,” to the Chicago Tribune. She remarked, “Nice, peaceful,” on ABC 7, a regional TV station. But the question “What are we having for dinner?” was her top concern.
Immediately following the conclusion of World War I and as the 1918 pandemic was spreading over the globe, Hoffner was born in 1918. With COVID-19, she endured a second pandemic. According to The New York Times, she was a poor child who couldn’t afford college so she went to work for Illinois Bell Telephone, subsequently a division of AT&T, instead. When she began working as a telephone operator in 1938, her hourly wage was 25 cents, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. At 104, she had spent as many years in retirement as she had in employment.
Conant and others were shocked by her death. The Chicago Sun-Times adds that she had a hot air balloon flight planned for that day in addition to an interview with a German magazine. “I’ve never been in one of those,” she remarked.
Conant told the Sun-Times, “She thought that her life was really uninteresting.” And I thought she was fascinating.
In case you were curious, Hoffner had a chicken salad special at the Tangled Roots brewery in Ottawa, Illinois, for dinner on October 1.
Early November will see a memorial service.