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Though Hoover's last spoken words are unknown, his last known written words were a get well message to his friend Harry Truman, six days before his death, after he heard that Truman had sustained injuries from slipping in a bathroom: "Bathtubs are a menace to ex-presidents for as you may recall a bathtub rose up and fractured my vertebrae when I was in Venezuela on your world famine mission in 1946. My warmest sympathy and best wishes for your recovery."[277] Two months earlier, on August 10, Hoover reached the age of 90, only the second U.S. president (after John Adams) to do so. When asked how he felt on reaching the milestone, Hoover replied, "Too old."[275] At the time of his death, Hoover had been out of office for over 31 years (11,553 days all together). This was the longest retirement in presidential history until Jimmy Carter broke that record in September 2012.[278]
Hoover was honored with a state funeral in which he lay in state in the United States Capitol rotunda.[279] President Lyndon Johnson and First Lady Ladybird Johnson attended, along with former presidents Truman and Eisenhower. 