World's Oldest Living Person, Sister Andre, Dies in Her Sleep

Sister André, the world's oldest known person, who lived through two world wars, the 1918 influenza outbreak, and COVID-19, passed away in France on Tuesday. She was 118 years old.

In an interview with French news media, a representative for the nursing facility in the southern city of Toulon where Sister André resided verified the news and stated that she died in her sleep.

World's Oldest Living Person Dies

"Tonight, humanity loses its oldest individual," tweeted the city's mayor, Hubert Falco. According to Guinness World Records, the French nun made news in recent years for being the oldest known survivor of COVID-19. Per NY Times, she defeated the illness just before her 117th birthday with minimal repercussions.

Tavella told Agence France-Presse on Tuesday that Sister André wished to be reunited with her brother, with whom she was close, in death. He stated, "For her, it is freedom." Sister André was born Lucile Randon on February 11, 1904, the same year New York's first subway station opened. She was raised in the southern town of Alès by a Protestant family of six.

At 26, she converted to Catholicism and was baptized after working as a governess in Paris. Approximately twenty years later, she joined a charitable order and assumed her ecclesiastical title.

Who is Sister André?

Lucile Randon, also known as Sister André, was born in the southern French town of Ales on February 11, 1904, and she survived both world wars. As a young girl, she was surprised by her first encounter with electric illumination at school. According to spokesman David Tavella, she died at about 2:00 a.m. on Tuesday at the Sainte-Catherine-Laboure nursing home in the southern port city of Toulon.

The Gerontology Research Group, which verifies information about people believed to be 110 or older, classified her as the oldest known person in the world after the passing of Kane Tanaka, who was 119 years old and lived in Japan last year. Gerontology Research Group lists 115-year-old Maria Branyas Morera, born in the United States but currently resides in Spain, as the world's oldest living person.

In January 2021, shortly before her 117th birthday, Sister André tested positive for the coronavirus, but she had so few symptoms that she was unaware she was sick. Her survival made news in France and around the world. When asked about her extraordinary life after surviving two world wars in April, she told French journalists, "Working... makes you live." "I worked till the age of 108."

However, the local daily Midi Libre reported that in 2020, after Sister Andre had recovered from COVID-19, she stated, "God has forgotten me." The newspaper said that during a May visit with her, she was hindered by the ravages of old age, with impaired eyesight and hearing and a face twisted by joint agony.

Sister Andre was known to enjoy a daily glass of wine and some chocolate during happier times. In 2021, she celebrated her 117th birthday with Champagne, red wine, and port. She first saw electricity as a little child when she turned on a school light, a new word for her to learn, and she described it as "a thrill."

Jeanne Calment, a French woman who also resided in the south of France, died in 1997 at the age of 122 and held the record for longevity, AP News reported.

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