A very special woman with more than a century of smiling under her belt celebrated another birthday this weekend. Mrs. Ethel Darden, the oldest-known woman in Illinois, had her 110th birthday party over the weekend. Over the years, her opinion on many things has changed, but not her appreciation for education. Darden made her mark in Chicago as an assistant principal to Chicago’s first private non-sectarian African American school, Howalton Day School.