Louise Levy, along with hundreds of others ages 95 and older, was part of a study by the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine to understand how their genetic makeup led to their good physical and cognitive health during extremely long lives. She died on July 17 in Greenwich, CT. She was 112.

She had been the oldest known living person in New York State, according to LongeviQuest, which maintains a database of super-centenarians, people who have lived into a 12th decade. She did not have heart disease, diabetes or Alzheimer’s disease, but was treated for breast cancer and smoked cigarettes for decades, until 1965. Even as her hearing, eyesight and mobility diminished in recent years, she stayed active with tai chi and stretching classes, playing bridge, and knitting sweaters for hospitalized babies. She began losing her short-term memory only in the last six months.