The French sister André, who since April 2022 had been the dean of known humanity, died in her sleep on the night of January 16 to 17 in her retirement home in Toulon, in the south of France.
A few days before her 119th birthday, Sister André “ died at 2 a.m. There is great sadness, but she wanted it, it was her desire to join her beloved brother. For her, it’s a release “, explained David Tavella, in charge of communication at the Sainte-Catherine-Labouré accommodation establishment for dependent elderly people where she resided.
No official organization assigns these titles of dean or dean, but specialists agreed that Sister André was so far the oldest living person whose marital status had been verified. The Guinness Book of Records had also recorded this record on April 25, after the death at 119 of the Japanese Kane Tanaka. For several years, she had not hidden a certain weariness: she wished ” withdraw from this matter “. But “ the good Lord does not hear me “, she confided to AFP who had met her at length in January 2022.
Confined to a wheelchair, blind, Sister André, born Lucile Randon on February 11, 1904 in Alès, in the south of France, regretted having lost part of her physical abilities. ” They say work kills, it was work that made me live, I worked until I was 108 “, she said in April 2022 when she was made dean of humanity, after having been dean of the French and then of the Europeans.
Jeanne Calment remains the longest-lived person
In her retirement home in Toulon, she always liked to taste chocolate and drink a glass of port. His life was punctuated by a mass every morning. She always appeared in her nun’s habit, a blue kerchief over her hair. She carried within her her mission as a servant of others “, explained in April Sister Thérèse, another boarder, certain that “ his deep faith held her up. The door to his modest bedroom was always left open in case anyone wanted to pop in, because “ all day alone with her pain, it’s not funny “.
In 2021, Sister André had gone through the Covid without any difficulty, becoming a symbol of hope that had sparked a flood of letters from all over the world. She responded to almost all requests, except requests for highlights of hair or DNA research. She regularly joked about the record to beat, that of Jeanne Calment, who died at 122 in Arles in 1997, in the south of France that they shared. But Jeanne Calment therefore remains the person who has lived the longest in the history of humanity and whose civil status has been verified.
(With AFP)