World’s new oldest living person confirmed as 118-year-old Sister André
Sister André has been crowned the oldest person alive at 118 years and 73 days old following the death of the previous record-holder, Kane Tanaka.
Born Feb. 11, 1904, as Lucile Randon, Sister André is also the third-oldest French person and third-oldest European person to live, respectively.
Guinness World Records confirmed her record-holding status Tuesday, not only making her the oldest person alive, but also the oldest woman.
In her younger years, she was a teacher and governess who looked after young kids during World War II. Following the war, she spent 28 years working with orphans and the elderly at a hospital in Vichy, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes prior to becoming a nun. She took the name Sister André in 1944.
Her record-holding status also makes her the world’s oldest living nun.
She’s also the world’s oldest COVID-19 survivor, having contracted the virus in January 2021 after already living through the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. The nun beat the illness with no symptoms or side effects after only three weeks — just in time for her 117th birthday.
In 2019, she was also named an honorary citizen of her residing city of Toulon, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, France — even receiving a letter from Pope Francis.
For the last 12 years, Sister André has lived in a retirement home. Despite being partially deaf and using a wheelchair, she keeps her mind busy.
“They get me up at 7 a.m., they give me my breakfast, then they put me at my desk where I stay busy with little things,” she told Guinness World Records.
But being in a retirement home hasn’t stripped her of her essentials. She loves to indulge in sweets — with chocolate being her “guilty pleasure” — and enjoys a glass of wine every day.
“Her glass of wine maintains her and which is perhaps her longevity secret,” noted a staff member from the nun’s care home. “I don’t know — I don’t encourage people to drink a glass of wine every day!”
Sister André may be onto something, though. The oldest person ever recorded, a French woman named Jeanne Louise Calment who lived to be 122 years and 164 days old, believed her love of chocolate and wine were key to life longevity.
