Mumbai, India (CU)_ Sister André survived the First World War and the 1918 Spanish Flu, and in 2021 became the oldest COVID-19 survivor in the world. According to global media reports, she said last year that she didn’t even realize that she had it.
The French nun has bagged the title of the world’s oldest person. When asked the secret for her long life, she revealed a glass of wine and chocolate every day. Sister André was named the world’s oldest person at the age of 118 years and 73 days by Guinness World Records (GWR).
Sister André already bagged the title of the oldest woman in Europe when she reached 117 years, but the world’s oldest person title was bestowed upon her following the death of Japanese lady Kane Tanaka. According to the GWR’s website, her date of birth was on February 11, 1904 and her original name is Lucille Randon. She worked as a governess and cared for the kids before becoming a nun during World War II in 1944.
Sister André has been residing in a nursing home in Toulon for more than a decade and stayed inside her room throughout the pandemic in 2021. Jeanne Louise Calment, a Frenchwoman who lived to reach 122 years and 164 days old, also holds the record for the oldest person ever. She, too, occasionally drank a glass of wine and had a special affection for chocolate.
Sister André is now on a mission to shatter that record. David Tavella, the nun’s confidant, expressed confidence that the nun will break the record. She said, “Calment’s record is within reach and if she’s going to stay on Earth, she might as well make it”. The nun also got a letter from Pope Francis and French President Emmanuel Macron, who was just re-elected. Sister André was described as “an object of pride and an example to the whole world” by Toulon’s mayor Hubert Falco.
