The world’s oldest person, Lucile Randon has died in a nursing home at age 118.
She was crowned the oldest person by the Guinness World Record after Kane Tanaka, Japan, died in April 2022. Tanaka was 119 years old at the time of her death.
Randon was born on Feb. 11, 1904 – the same year Theodore Roosevelt was elected president of the US and was a teacher who looked after children during World War II.
She spent almost three decades working with orphans and taking care of the elderly at a French hospital before she became a Catholic nun in 1944.
She survived the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, and survived a bout with COVID-19 in 2021. She tested positive for the virus at her nursing home but didn’t show any symptoms.
At the time, she said she didn’t mind dying when asked if she feared COVID.
“No, I wasn’t scared because I wasn’t scared to die… I’m happy to be with you, but I would wish to be somewhere else join my big brother and my grandfather and my grandmother,” she told France’s BFM television.
Before her death, she was known for indulging in chocolates and had a glass of wine every day with a staff member at her nursing home speculating it was her “longevity secret,” according to the Guinness World Record.
