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Olivia Neubauer, a 100-year-old Chicago educator who was still teaching this year, has died.
Neubauer started teaching at Chicago's Pullman Tech High School in 1935, and continued for 77 years. Local stations visited Neubauer in January, two months before she turned 100, in her 49th year at Ashburn Lutheran School, teaching reading to kindergarten and pre-k students. She helped found the school in 1964.
"I just love it. It's really great. The kids are really good kids," Neubauer told WLS in January.
She largely taught students one-on-one in recent years, a departure from the 200 or so students she said she had at the beginning of her career. And while Neubauer told CBS Chicago she never expected to keep teaching at 100, she had no intention of retiring.
"The Lord will tell me when to stop," she told NBC in March.
Her students are also high performers -- her kindergarteners were reading well within just months of starting school, and teens attribute their high school success to a strong foundation coached by Neubauer in their younger years. Ashley Hudson, an eighth grader in the spring, was headed to one of the city's top high schools.
"Thank you, Ms. Neubauer, for being such an awesome teacher," Hudson told NBC. "I wouldn't be where I am now without you."
The educator died Sunday following days of hospitalization for fluid in her lungs, WLS reports. The family is in the process of making funeral and visitation arrangements.