Frédéric Michel with AFP
modified to
8:55 a.m., January 18, 2023
The doyenne of humanity, the French sister André, died on Tuesday at the age of 118, her spokesperson told AFP. She died in her sleep in Toulon where she lived in a retirement home. Confined to a wheelchair and blind, she no longer hid a certain weariness.
The French sister Andrewwho was the dean of known humanity since April, died in her sleep on the night of Monday to Tuesday in her nursing home in Toulon, in the south of France, his spokesman told AFP on Tuesday evening. “She died at 2am. 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 residential establishment for dependent elderly people where she lived.
No official organization assigns these titles of dean or dean, but specialists agreed that Sister André was until now the oldest living person whose civil status had been verified. The Guinness Book of Records had also recorded this record on April 25following the death at 119 of the Japanese Kane Tanaka.
She wanted to “retire from this affair”
For several years, she had not hidden a certain weariness: she wanted to “retire from this affair”. But “the good Lord does not hear me”, she confided to AFP who had met her at length in January 2022. Nailed to a wheelchair, blind, sister André, born Lucile Randon on February 11, 1904 in Alès (Gard), regretted having lost part of his physical abilities.
“They say that work kills, 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, following having been dean of the French and then of the Europeans.