French sister André, born Lucile Randon, has been officially named the new oldest person in the world at the age of 118 years and 73 days. That reports Guinness World Records. With this, the Frenchwoman succeeds the Japanese woman Kane Tanaka, who died on Monday at the age of 119. André received the title of oldest woman in Europe a few years ago when she celebrated her 117th birthday. The secret to longevity? According to the sister, that is a daily glass of wine and a good portion of chocolate.
Lucile Randon was born on February 11, 1904 in France. When she was young, the woman worked as a teacher. During World War II, Randon cared for orphans and the elderly at a hospital in Vichy. Even after the war, the Frenchwoman continued that job and did so for a total of 28 years. In 1944 Randon also decided to enter the monastery and changed her name to André. The Frenchwoman is therefore not only the oldest woman, but also the oldest nun in the world.
André has been living in a retirement home in the southern French city of Toulon for twelve years now. In 2019, the nun was declared an honorary citizen of her hometown by French President Emmanuel Macron, already the eighteenth president of France to experience the sister. That same year André also received a letter from Pope Francis.
Corona contamination
The French sister is stringing together the records, as she is also the oldest person in the world to be infected with the corona virus. André got corona in January 2021, but at the time told the British newspaper ‘The Guardian’ that she “didn’t even notice she had it”. The sister isolated herself in the retirement home, but quickly recovered from the virus and is said to have only felt “a little tired”. Pandemics are therefore not unknown to André. In 1918 she already experienced the Spanish flu pandemic.
118-year-old André is blind, does not hear well and is in a wheelchair, but she still likes to be “active”. “They wake me up every morning at 7am, give me breakfast and put me at my desk where I deal with little things,” the sister said. When André is asked about her secret to longevity, she replies that she drinks a glass of wine every day and that her ‘guilty pleasure’ is chocolate. “Still, I don’t encourage people to drink a glass of wine every day!” laughs one of the nurses from the rest home.
“Better in Heaven”
According to the American news channel ‘CNN’, Sister André thinks her new record is just a “sad title”. “I think I’d be better off in heaven, but God doesn’t want me there yet,” it sounds.
The oldest person ever for whom Guinness could determine the age was also a Frenchwoman by the name of Jeanne Louise Calment. She died in 1997 when she was 122 years and 164 days old. Calment also claimed that wine and chocolate played an important role in her exceptionally long life.
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