Dutchwoman, "world's oldest person", dies aged 115
30 Aug 2005 15:10:57 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Adds body donated to science, paragraphs 8, 9)
By Emma Thomasson
AMSTERDAM, Aug 30 (Reuters) - The world's oldest person on record, a Dutchwoman who swore by a daily helping of herring for a healthy life, died on Tuesday aged 115.
Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, a former needlework teacher born on June 29, 1890, died in her sleep at a nursing home in the northern Dutch town of Hoogeveen.
"In the last few weeks she became weaker but she was bright up until her last. She was ready to say goodbye," Johan Beijering, director of the Westerkim nursing home, told Reuters.
"She thought it was great she was the world's oldest given that she weighed only 3 lb (1.36 kg) when she was born. She was an optimistic woman."
Also known as Hennie, the passionate soccer fan married a tax inspector in 1939 and was forced to sell her jewellery to buy food during the German occupation in World War Two.
She had no children and was widowed in 1959 after 20 years of marriage, but continued to live on her own in an apartment in Hoogeveen until she was 106.
"HERRING EVERY DAY"
"I eat a herring every day and I drink a glass of orange juice every day for the vitamins," the Ajax Amsterdam fan told journalists on her 114th birthday.
Andel-Schipper decided in 1972 to donate her body to science and her body was taken to Groningen University on Tuesday for immediate tests to search for clues as to why she lived so long.
"She was in extremely good health except she didn't see so well. She had no illnesses common to growing older such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and that's interesting. Her brain will be examined," a spokesman for the university said.
As a young girl, Andel-Schipper celebrated the coronation of Dutch Queen Wilhelmina in 1898. When she became the oldest living Dutch person more than a century later, she met Wilhelmina's granddaughter, Queen Beatrix.
A spokesman for Guinness World Records, which had confirmed she was the world's oldest known person, said that title had now passed to American Elisabeth Bolden, born on Aug. 15, 1890.
The world's oldest living man on record, Emiliano Mercado Del Toro, lives in Puerto Rico. He was born on Aug. 21, 1891.
The record for the longest life is held by French woman Jeanne-Louise Calment who died aged 122 in 1997, according to Guinness World Records (
www.guinnessworldrecords.com).
