Dorothy Hoffner, a 104-year-old resident of Chicago who recently went on a daring skydiving adventure to break a Guinness World Record, has sadly passed away.
Tragically, she passed before she could be officially certified by Guinness World Records as the oldest person ever to jump from an aircraft.
Her dear friend, Joe Conant, disclosed that the Brookdale Lake View senior living community staff discovered her lifeless on Monday morning, October 9. It is believed that Hoffner peacefully passed away in her sleep during the night of October 8.
Conant, a nurse who affectionately referred to her as “Grandma,” explained that he had the privilege of meeting Hoffner several years ago while he was serving as a caregiver for another resident at the senior living facility. He admired her extraordinary vitality and unwavering mental acuity.
“She was indefatigable. She just kept going,” he said Tuesday, Oct. 10. “She was not someone who would take naps in the afternoon, or not show up for any function, dinner or anything else. She was always there, fully present. She kept going, always.”
On Oct. 1, Hoffner made a tandem skydive that could land her in the record books as the world’s oldest skydiver. She jumped out of a plane from 13,500 feet (4,100 meters) at Skydive Chicago in Ottawa, Illinois, 85 miles (140 kilometers) southwest of Chicago.
“Age is just a number,” Hoffner told a cheering crowd moments after landing. It was not her first time jumping from a plane — that happened when she was a spry 100 years of age.
Conant said he was working through paperwork to ensure that Guinness World Records certifies Hoffner posthumously as the world’s oldest skydiver, but he expects that will take some time. The current record was set in May 2022 by 103-year-old Linnéa Ingegärd Larsson of Sweden.
Conant said Hoffner didn’t skydive to break a record. He said she had so thoroughly enjoyed her first jump that she just wanted to do it again.
“She had no intention of breaking the record. And she had no interest in any publicity or anything. She wasn’t doing it for any other reason than she wanted to go skydiving,” he said.
Skydive Chicago and the United States Parachute Association celebrated Hoffner in a joint statement Tuesday, Oct. 10.
“We are deeply saddened by Dorothy’s passing and feel honored to have been a part of making her world-record skydive a reality.
“Skydiving is an activity that many of us safely tuck away in our bucket lists. But Dorothy reminds us that it’s never too late to take the thrill of a lifetime. We are forever grateful that skydiving was a part of her exciting, well-lived life,” they said.
Conant said Hoffner worked for more than four decades as a telephone operator with Illinois Bell, which later became AT&T, and retired 43 years ago. The lifelong Chicago resident never married, and Conant said she had no immediate family members.
A memorial service for Hoffner will be held in early November.
