News

Not Long at the Top

8 April 2015

By James

The title of the world’s oldest person has passed on with remarkable speed following the death of the previous holder just five days after gaining the epithet (see our article here). Gertude Weaver, who was 116, died from pneumonia on Monday morning in the city of Camden, Arkansas. Staff at the nursing home where she spent her final fifteen years said they were ‘devastated’ by her death and that she had enjoyed looking at articles related to her new title in the last days of her life.

“She was a really sweet lady,” said Mayor of Camden Marie Trisollini. “She was relatively perky and coherent when I talked with her before the party,.. when you asked for advice on how to live a long life she would say: ‘Use a lot of skin moisturiser, treat everyone nice, love your neighbour and eat your own cooking. Don’t eat at fast food places.'”

The supercentenarian’s death leaves Jeralean Talley of Detroit, who was born in 1899, the oldest person in the world.

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