'Gran-Ma Soule' Passes On

The Jackson (MI) Citizen Patriot of 6 September 2007 brings news by Brad Flory under the headline "Woman hiked Appalachian Trail" that thru-hiker "Verna Soule, 82, a Michigan Center woman known to serious trail hikers as Gran-Ma Soule, died Wednesday at her home."

The obituary says that

"after her first long hike on the Appalachian Trail in 1979, she returned in all but one of the next 21 years. She hiked the entire trail, called a thru-hike, in 1987 at age 62."

Then, in 2000 at age 75,

"Soule hiked more than 1,600 rugged miles from Georgia to Vermont between March and August, but was forced to quit because she became sick with Lyme disease."

Had she finished that year, she would have been the oldest woman to thru-hike.