The French sister André, who since April 2022 had been the dean of known humanity, died in her sleep on the night of Monday to Tuesday in her retirement home in Toulon, in the south of France, announced to the AFP its spokesperson on Tuesday evening.
“She died at 2:00 a.m. (8 p.m. Monday EST). There is great sadness but she wanted it, it was her desire to join her beloved brother. For her, it’s a release, ”explained David Tavella, in charge of communication at the Sainte-Catherine-Labouré accommodation establishment for dependent elderly people where she lived.
No official body attributes these titles of dean or dean, but the specialists agreed that Sister André was until now the oldest living person whose civil status had been verified.
The Guinness Book of Records also recorded this record on April 25, after the death at 119 of Japanese Kane Tanaka.
For several years, she had not hidden a certain weariness: she wanted to “retire from this business”. But “the good Lord does not hear me[ait] not “, she confided to AFP who had met her at length in January 2022.
Confined to a wheelchair, blind, Sister André, born Lucile Randon on February 11, 1904 in Alès, in the south of France, regretted having lost part of her physical abilities.
“They say that work kills, for me it was work that made me live, I worked until I was 108”, she said in April 2022 when she was made dean of humanity, after having been dean of the French and then of the Europeans.