İrfan Ertaş, the head of the local birth registry directorate, confirms the record of Solmaz’s age, saying: “According to our records Halim Solmaz was born in 1884 and is still alive. She lives in [Beşiri’s] Bismil [neighborhood].” Solmaz’s identification card says she was born on July 1, 1884, and according to reports she had seven children (four sons and three daughters) and is grandmother to 54 and great-grandmother to 150.Mehmet Beşir Solmaz, a grandchild of Halim Solmaz, translated his grandmother’s comments from Kurdish to Turkish in an interview with the Anatolia news agency. Solmaz explains that she married twice, losing her first husband after three years of marriage during World War I. She then married Şemsettin Solmaz and moved with him to the province of Siirt.
Her grandson explains: “My grandma is 125 years old and is now beginning to have difficulty speaking and moving around. My mother looks after her. My grandma and grandpa moved to a village in Siirt’s Kurtalan district following the 1917 Russian Revolution and stayed there for some time. Of course, they had a very difficult life. For example, they lived in what in those days could be considered a cave. They also saw famine at some times.
“Later they moved to Bismil with my father, who is an imam. That was about 20 years ago. Our family lives across Siirt, Batman and Diyarbakır. My grandma has 54 grandchildren from her seven children, and nearly 150 great-grandchildren. She also has great-great-grandchildren, but I don’t know the exact number,” he said.
Offered ayran to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Halim Solmaz explained through her grandson that she remembers when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, visited the Kurtulan district long ago and also came to the village where she lived. She said Atatürk arrived at the village on horseback and that her relatives greeted him, and that she personally offered him and his comrades ayran. “Atatürk had blue eyes and was very handsome. He got on a horse and was accompanied by cavalrymen,” she said.
Her grandson explains that there has also been loss in Halim Solmaz’s long life; three of her children have passed away. “My grandmother and grandfather were married for 60 years; my grandfather passed away in 1972. When my grandmother has enough energy to speak, she often says, ‘If only I had died, enough already, I’ve lived a long time.’ She eats yogurt more than anything else. In the past she always used to eat butter as well. She has no chronic illnesses, but due to her advanced age she depends on us for her care. I think my grandma is the oldest person in the world,” he said.
Mehmet Beşir Solmaz’s mother, Selime Solmaz, also spoke to the Anatolia news agency through her son’s translation, explaining that she has lived in the same home as her mother-in-law for 40 years and is her primary caregiver. “For the past 40 years she has been blind. I take care of everything from her toilette to her food. Sometimes she says to me, ‘Husbands used to beat their spouses; brides these days are very lucky because their husbands don’t beat them.’ Due to her age sometimes she forgets even to eat and drink unless she’s reminded,” she explains.
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