The world’s oldest known person, French nun Lucile Randon has died at age 118.
Randon, who took the name of Sister Andre when she joined a Catholic charitable order in 1944, was born in southern France on 11 February 1904, when the first world war was still a decade away.
According to Guinness World Records, Randon holds the record for oldest living person and oldest living nun.
She died in her sleep at her retirement home in Toulon, France.
Randon was about three years away from setting the record for oldest person ever, but that record is held by Jeanne Louise Calment, also of France, who died in 1997 after living to be 122 years and 164 days old.
Adding to her collection of titles, Randon also holds the record for oldest COVID-19 survivor.
In 2021, eighty-one people at her retirement home were infected by COVID-19 and Randon tested positive for COVID-19 a few weeks before her 117th birthday, but recovered from the virus in about three weeks.
When asked if she was scared to have the virus, she told France’s BFM television “no” because she wasn’t “scared to die”.
“I’m happy to be with you, but I would wish to be somewhere else- join my big brother and my grandfather and my grandmother.”
Randon also survived the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.
In her younger years, Randon worked as a teacher and as a governess in Paris for children of rich families. During World War II, she looked after children and then spent 28 years working with orphans and the elderly in a hospital before becoming a Catholic nun.
In 2020, Randon told French Radio, she had no idea how she’d lived so long.
“I’ve no idea what the secret is. Only God can answer that question,” she said.
“I’ve had plenty of unhappiness in life and during the 1914-1918 war when I was a child, I suffered like everyone else.”
According to the Gerontology Research Group, the oldest living person is now Maria Branyas Morera of Spain at 115 years and 320 days of age.