Her parents could not afford tuition, so in 1923 she moved to New York during the early stages of the Harlem Renaissance.

[11][12] She worked for wealthy families taking care of their children for $7 a week, and during this time she supported many of her relatives as they moved to New York.

[12][7][9][13][14] She also used some of her salary to establish The Calhoun Club, which was a college scholarship fund for African-American students at her high school.

[7] At the time of her death she resided at the Vandalia Senior Center in East New York, Brooklyn, and had more than 100 nieces and nephews.

[16] In 2022, researchers cited Susannah Mushatt Jones in a study that connected longevity to positive attitudes towards the aging process itself.

[12] Jones became the world's oldest living person and one of two remaining people verified to have been born in the 1800s (along with Italian woman Emma Morano) upon the death of Jeralean Talley on June 17, 2015.

[18] On July 3, 2015, three days before her 116th birthday, she was presented with a certificate from Guinness World Records recognizing her as the oldest person alive.