World’s Oldest Known Person Dies At Age 118

The world’s oldest known person, French nun Lucile Randon has passed away at the age of 118 in the southern French city of Toulon.

Lucile Randon, known as Sister Andrée, was born in southern France on February 11, 1904, the same year New York City opened its first subway and about a decade before the First World War broke out.

She took the name of Sister Andre when she joined a Catholic charitable order in 1944.

Sister Andrée was the world’s oldest living person according to the Gerontology Research Group’s (GRG) World Supercentenarian Rankings List.

Her nursing home said she died in her sleep on January 17.

Sister Andre worked as a teacher, a governess and spent time looking after children during World War II. She then spent 28 years working with orphans and the elderly in a hospital before becoming a Catholic nun.

In 2021, Randon survived COVID-19 after testing positive for the virus in mid-January. It only took her three days to recover. Ten others in her nursing home died in the outbreak.

She became the world’s eldest following the death of Kane Tanaka, a Japanese woman previously certified as the world’s oldest person, who died at the age of 119 on April 19.

The world’s oldest person is now believed to be 115-year-old Maria Branyas Morera, who was born in the US but now lives in Spain. She was born on March 4, 1907.