Arbella Perkins Ewings celebrated her birthday March 13 with a proclamation from Mayor Tom Leppert and speeches by friends and family. She blew out all 114 candles on her birthday cake. But during the party, she warned those attending that she wouldn't be around much longer. "She was telling everyone, 'It's time to meet my maker,' " Sabrina Porter, the retirement home's executive director, told the Dallas Morning News. "It was a blessing that she went so peacefully." At the time of her death, Ewings was the oldest person in Texas, the second-oldest American and the third-oldest person in the world, according to the Gerontology Research Group, a California group that tracks the world's oldest people. As of March 1, the organization had validated 81 "supercentenarians," who were at least 110 years old. The oldest, Edna Parker, of Indiana, will turn 115 in April, and the second-oldest, Maria de Jesus, of Portugal, turned 114 in September. Ewings was born the fourth oldest of 12 children whose great-grandparents had been slaves in Mississippi. She married Frank Ewings in 1915, and they moved to South Dallas in 1936, where she worked as a housekeeper until the 1960s. Frank Ewings died in 1977, and the couple's only daughter, Claudia, died in 1970. "She told me once that the secret to a long life is she spent six months minding her own business and six months leaving other people alone," great-grandniece Ruby Perkins Williams said. Ewings was proud of being able to care for herself and her 900-square-foot home well after she turned 100. She was known for the gardenias she kept in her front yard, the juicy hamburgers she served up from the grill and her sense of humor. As members of the family passed away, she would simply shrug and say, "It was time," Mrs. Williams said. She was forced to move into the retirement home after she fell and broke her hip at a family party to celebrate her 113th birthday. In addition to eight generations of nieces and nephews, Mrs. Ewings is survived by a sister, Annie Lee Perkins, who at 103 is her lone surviving sibling. She lives in a nursing home in Streetman, Texas.