IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Centenarian nun thought to be the world's oldest person dies at 118

The French nun, Sister Andre, had Covid last year.
In this file photo taken on February 10, 2021, Sister Andre, Lucile Randon in the registry of birth, the eldest French and European citizen, prays in a wheelchair, on the eve of her 117th birthday, in an EHPAD (Housing Establishment for Dependant Elderly People) in Toulon, southern France, where she has been living since 2009. - The world's oldest known person, Lucile Randon, known as Sister Andre, has died aged 118, her spokesman said on January 17, 2023. Randon was born in southern France on February 11, 1904, when World War I was still a decade away.
Sister Andre prays on the eve of her 117th birthday in Toulon, southern France, on Feb. 10, 2021.Nicolas Tucat / AFP - Getty Images file
/ Source: Reuters

PARIS — French nun Sister Andre, the world’s oldest person, passed away at 118 in France, her retirement home told Reuters on Tuesday.

Lucile Randon, who took the name of Sister Andre when she joined a Catholic charitable order in 1944, survived Covid  last year.

She was born on Feb. 11, 1904, and was the world’s oldest living person according to the Gerontology Research Group’s (GRG) World Supercentenarian Rankings List.

Earlier this month, the woman believed to be the oldest person in the United States died at the age of 115.

The Iowa woman, Bessie Laurena Hendricks, of Lake City, died Jan. 3.

Born in 1907 in west-central Iowa’s Calhoun County, Hendricks was alive to witness news of the sinking of the Titanic, World War I and II, the Great Depression and both the Spanish flu and Covid-19 pandemics. 

The Gerontology Research Group reports that Hendrick’s death leaves 114-year-old Edie Ceccarelli of California as the country’s oldest living person.