Just one human born in 19th century left as world’s oldest person dies at 116

Susannah Mushatt Jones, the world’s oldest person, has died in New York at age 116. She passed away at a public housing facility for the elderly in Brooklyn where she had lived for more than three decades. She had been ill for the past 10 days. Another 116-year-old, Emma Morano, of Verbania, Italy, is now the unofficial world’s oldest person and probably the last in the world to have been born in the 1800s.

Ms Jones was the very last American from the 1800s

Robert Young, from the Gerontology Research Group

Ms Jones, one of 11 siblings, was born in a small farm town near Montgomery, Alabama, in 1899. After a spell helping her family pick crops, she worked as a nanny, heading north to New Jersey and eventually making her way to New York. Her one marriage lasted only briefly but she has more than 100 nieces and nephews. In an interview last year, she she credited her long life to getting sleep, not smoking and not drinking.

Susannah Mushatt Jones