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Super-centenarians in the world’s news
Julia Flores Colque is said to be the world’s oldest person, approaching the age of 119. Her ID card, certified by the Bolivian government, claims she was born in a Bolivian mining camp on 26 October 1900, though Guinness World Records have not been approached for confirmation of this. Birth certificates were introduced in Bolivia in 1940; before that, births were registered by baptism certificates issued by the Catholic Church. As a child, Ms Colque herded sheep and llamas in the Bolivian highlands until she moved in her teenage years to a valley, where she sold fruit and vegetables. She never married, still sings in her indigenous Quechua tongue and strums a charango (tiny Andean guitar) at her home in Sacaba, where she lives with her grand niece. Researchers in Denmark have found a way to determine age by radiocarbon dating the lens of the eye, but normally this can only be done post mortem. Despite Russian disinformation [FT376:15], the all-time official longevity record holder is still the Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment (122 years and 164 days). Metro, 29 Aug 2018.
Olive Evelyn Boar, née Macro, became Britain’s oldest person on 11 May 2018, when the Yorkshire woman Bessie Camm died at the age of 113 years and 325 days. Mrs Boar, a former seamstress and grandmother of five, was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, on 29 September 1904, the fourth of eight children, and married Claude Boar in 1932. In 1935 they bought a house in Ipswich for £300. Claude died in 1979 and his widow stayed on in the house until moving to a care home in Felixstowe in 2013. She died on 28 August 2018, aged 113 years and 333 days. She didn’t own a passport and had never been abroad. Her son Robin Boar, 73, recalled how she did everything by hand, despite the effects of ageing, refusing to use an automatic washing machine. “Her roast dinners were fairly renowned,” he said. “She would make five times as much as you could possibly eat.” East Anglian Daily Times, 2 Sept; BBC News, independent.co.uk, 3 Sept 2018.
Richard Overton, possibly the oldest man in the US, died on 27 December, aged 112. He served in the all-black 1887th
Engineer Aviation Battalion for three years and was involved in combat operations and beach landings in the Pacific during WWII. He credited his longevity to cigars and whisky. “I been smoking cigars from when I was 18 years old, I’m still a smoking ‘em. Twelve a day,” he said. On Veterans’ Day in 2013, Barack Obama said: “[Overton] was there at Pearl Harbor, when the battleships were still smouldering. He was there at Okinawa. He was there at Iwo Jima, where he said,
‘I only got out of there by the grace of God.’” Born in 1906, he spent most of his life in Austin, Texas, and for his 111th birthday Austin City Council renamed the street he had lived on for more than 70 years Richard Overton Avenue. Well into his 100s, he would drive widows to church. BBC News, 28 Dec; Guardian, 29 Dec 2018.
Masazo Nonaka, a former innkeeper in Japan, became ‘officially’ the oldest man in the world in April 2018 [FT371:7]. He was born on 25 July 1905 and died on 20 January 2019, aged 113 years and 177 days. He had outlived seven siblings, his wife,
and three of their five children. His family had run a hot springs inn in Ashoro, Hokkaido, for four generations. It is now run by his granddaughter, Yuko. The fastest-aging country in the world, Japan as of September 2018 had a centenarian population of 69,785, nearly 90 per cent of them women. [AP, PA] 20 Jan; D.Mirror, irishexaminer.com, 21 Jan 2019.
A day after Nonaka’s death, a woman called Nanu Shaova died in the Caucasus region – in the Russian republic of KabardinoBalkaria. Her passport gave her age as 127, and in 2017 the Russia Book of Records register her as the country’s oldest person. She claimed to remember the month of her birth as May 1900, but not the exact date. Eve. Standard, 22 Jan 2019.
Koku Istambulova, a Chechen Muslim woman who never went to school and claimed never to have had a happy day in her life, died on 27 January at the supposed age of 129 years and six months. State pension records gave her date of birth as June 1889, without a specific date. D.Express, 7 Feb 2019.
On 9 March, Kane Tanaka, 116, was recognised by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest living person. She was born on 2 January 1903, the seventh of eight children. She married Hideo Tanaka in 1922, had four children and adopted another. She lives in a rest home in Fukuoka, Japan. She is usually up by 6am and enjoys calligraphy, calculations and the board game Othello. Sunday Express, 10 Mar 2019.
Britain’s oldest men – Robert Weighton from Alton, Hampshire, and Alfred Smith from St Madoes, Perthshire – both born on 29 March 1908, turned 111 this year [FT371:7]. They have never met but have exchanged birthday cards in recent years. BBC News, 29 Mar; Dundee Courier & Advertiser, 30 Mar; D.Telegraph, 10 June 2019.
Following Olive Boar’s death last August, Grace Jones became Britain’s oldest person. Coincidentally, there was another Grace Jones supercentenarian, a south Londoner born in 1899, who died aged 113 years and 342 days in 2013 [FT330:15]. Grace Jones Junior, known to her family as ‘Amazing Grace’, was born in Liverpool on 16 September 1906 and died at her home in Broadway, Worcestershire, on 7 June 2019, aged 112 years and 264 days. The former millinery factory owner (whose maiden name is not given in any press reports) married chief engineer Leonard Roderick Jones in 1933 in Liverpool. Both were children of vicars. He died in 1986, aged 79.
The restless couple lived in 28 homes in Liverpool, Devon, Cheshire, North Wales and Worcestershire. She finally moved to Mickleton, Worcestershire, in 2005 to be near her daughter, Deirdre McCarthy. Amazing Grace said the secret to her long life was a nightcap of Famous Grouse single malt whisky every evening for the last 62 years. Deirdre, 80, said of her mother: “She did everything with style, never grumbled and was always active… She doesn’t worry. She’s always said, ‘Worry doesn’t do you any good at all’.” The oldest person in Britain is now thought to be Dorothy Payne, 111, of Sevenoaks, Kent, born on 5 August 1907.
Moderate whisky consumption has been linked with a variety of health benefits including weight loss, lower risk of dementia and reduced risk of stroke. A study from the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen found whisky also helped protect against coronary heart disease by raising antioxidant levels in the body. These antioxidants originate from the oak barrels used to store whisky during maturation. They help to counteract destructive chemicals in the blood that hasten the ageing process. dailymail.co.uk, 16 Sept; irishpost.com, 21 Sept 2018; BBC News, 13 June; Metro, D.Mirror, D.Mail, 14 June 2019.
Giuseppina Robucci was said to be Europe’s oldest person. She was born on 20 March 1903 in the southern Italian town of Poggio Imperiale, and died in the same town on 18 June, aged 116 years and 90 days. She was born 77 days after Kane Tanaka, the current longevity world record holder (see above). Known locally as Nonna Peppa, Robucci had five children, nine grandchildren and 16 greatgrandchildren. She ran a coffee bar with her husband for years, and had been named “honorary mayor” in 2012. Italy previously claimed the world’s oldest woman. Emma Morano, the last living person verified to have been born in the 19th century, died on 15 April 2017, aged 117 years and 137 days [FT354:22, 365:22]. [AP] 19 June 2019.
For our last round-up of super centenarians, see FT371:6-7.