Oakland man, said by his daughter to be 117, dies

Oakland resident Andrew Hatch died at his daughter’s home Monday, and she says he was 117 years old.

“One of the things that I’ve always been proud of is that my dad didn’t allow the hatred that he saw perpetrated on a group of people just for the color of their skin to dictate his love and embrace when it came to everybody,” Sims said through tears Tuesday night.

A birth certificate stands in the way of the title as oldest man ever.

[...] she said, it wasn’t uncommon for poorer blacks in the rural South to have no birth records.

“That injustice, that disparity that existed then, affects my father now,” she said.

Sims said her father “could fix anything,” and remained self-employed throughout most of his life — another factor making it hard to verify his age.

“We never had an opportunity to confirm his age, even though we had his driver’s license, and we checked in with social security,” Sims said.

Sofia Rocher, a spokeswoman for Guinness World Records, said a management department reviews entries to name the official record holder.

“He was never really interested,” she said. he was a pretty low-key person.

In addition to his daughter, Hatch is survived by his son-in-law, Jerry Sims, nine grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.

A memorial for Hatch will be held at Chapel of the Chimes on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland on Jan. 30 at 4 p.m.

Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.