Bessie Cooper, the world’s oldest person, died yesterday in a Georgia nursing home at 116. Her son, Sidney Cooper, 77, said she had been ill recently with a stomach virus, then felt better Monday. Yesterday she had her hair set and watched a Christmas video, but later had trouble breathing.
She was declared the world’s oldest person in January 2011. Then in May, Guinness World Records learned that Maria Gomes Valentin of Brazil was 48 days older. But Valentin died the next month.
The title of world’s oldest person now belongs to 115-year-old Dina Manfredini, of Johnston, Iowa. The oldest known person of all time was Jeanne Calment, a Frenchwoman who lived to be 122 and died in 1997.