GUSTAVIA, Saint Barthélemy – The world’s oldest person according to the Guinness Book of World Records, a 114-year-old nun, has died in the French Caribbean island of St Barts, news agencies reported.
Eugenie Blanchard, died early yesterday in a local hospital’s geriatric ward, where she had lived for 30 years, an official said.
Blanchard could no longer talk, but had seemed to be in relatively good health, a relative said.
Born in St Barts in 1896, she lived much of her life in a convent on Curacao. She went by the nickname “Douchy,” a Dutch Creole world that means “Sweets”, because she was known to hand out candy to children, in hopes of getting them to study religion, agency reports said.
She was recognised as the world’s oldest person by the 2010 Guinness Book of World Records.Guinness had rejected a claim by Elizabeth “Ma Pampo” Israel of Dominica as one of the oldest human beings in modern times, citing a lack of evidence. “Ma Pampo” died in 2003, aged 128.A woman from East Texas, born five months after Blanchard, now holds the claim to be the world’s oldest living person. (CMC)
