At 116 years old, the world’s oldest person has died.
Susannah Mushatt Jones, known as “Miss Susie” celebrated her 116th birthday with family members, local dignitaries, and friends in New York last year, but she died on Thursday in New York City, a research group said.
Jones’ death makes Emma Morano-Martinuzzi, a 116-year-old woman in Italy, now the oldest living person, according to the Gerontology Research Group.
Reuters reports Jones was born in the southern US state of Alabama in 1899, and was the daughter of sharecroppers and granddaughter of slaves.
After graduating from high school she moved north in 1922 ending up in New York, where she worked as a housekeeper and childcare provider, and the Vandalia Senior Centre in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, where she lived.
She had been retired since 1965 – that’s 50 years of her life in retirement – and had said he longevity was down to lots of sleep and avoiding smoking and alcohol.
She has also been reported as eating four strips of bacon along with scrambled eggs and grits every morning, and eating bacon throughout the day.
The oldest verified person was Jeanne Calment of France, who died in 1997 at 122 years and 164 days, Gerontology Research Group.
