Sao Paulo – A Brazilian woman listed by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest person died Tuesday — just weeks shy of her 115th birthday. The title now reverts to a woman in the United States.
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Maria Gomes Valentim died of multiple organ failure, said Helerson Lima, a spokesman for the nursing home where she lived. Valentim would have turned 115 on July 9.
Guinness said Tuesday on its website that Valentim, “the first Brazilian super-centenarian to hold the title” died at the age of 114 years, 347 days.
On May 18, Guinness determined that Valentim was 48 days older than the person previously considered the world’s oldest human, Besse Cooper from Monroe, Georgia.
“With Maria’s passing, the title of Oldest Living Person reverts back to American Besse Cooper, age 114 years 299 days,” Guinness said.
Guinness verified that Valentim was born on July 9, 1896, in the city of Carangola in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais. She lived there all her life.
Last month, Guinness said on its website that Valentim, who was known as “Grandma Quita,” attributed her longevity to a healthy diet: eating a roll of bread every morning with coffee, fruit and the occasional milk with linseed.
Valentim’s family told reporters that she had a stubborn streak and always made a habit of minding her own business. They also said that her father lived to be 100.
“She says she has lived long because she has always taken care of her own life — and not meddled in the lives of others,” granddaughter Jane Ribeiro Moraes, 63, told a local newspaper in May.
Valentim married her husband, Joao, in 1913. He died in 1946.
Valentim is survived by four grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and five great-great grandchildren. Her only son died at age 75 in the early 1990s.
Valentim was scheduled to be buried Tuesday afternoon at the Carangola cemetery.
Strange how many people die so soon after getting the title of world’s oldest person
She outlived Yosef HaTzaddik, father of Ephraim and Menashe. She must have had some zchus somewhere.
It called dying of old age if your over 80 and you don’t get hit by a bus then you died of old age
This wise woman obviously was a chofetz chaim who guarded her lashon so she can merit creating good angels that guarded her life.
Heard Yankl Muller say;
Fewer people die at age of 100 then at 80.
“four grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and five great-great grandchildren”
This gives her a total of 16 descendants at the age of 116. I happen to know some people at the age of 40 with more than 16 descendants and when they’ll reach her age they’ll probably number in the hundreds if no thousands ki”h.
I happened to be in England when Queen Elizabeth’s mother (the “Queen Mum”) died at the age of 101. People carried on so about being “shocked” and some went so far as to blame all the tsoros she had from Princess Margaret and the whole Charles/Diana business, or she’d still be with us today. I’m not so sure :-).