Susannah Mushatt Jones died at the senior citizens home where she lived at age 116, said Robert Young of the Gerontology Research Group, which maintains a database of the world’s longest-living people.
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With Jones’ passing, the world’s oldest person is 116-year-old Emma Morano of Italy.
Miss Susie Susannah Mushatt Jones with her niece Lois Judge as they celebrate her 113th birthday with a party at the Vendalia Senior Center in Brooklyn in 2012.
Jones was born on July 6, 1899, in Lowndes County, Alabama, and her life spanned three centuries, according to Guinness World Records. She moved to NY to work as a nanny, where she helped to start a scholarship fund for young African-American women.
Jones, who attributed her longevity to sleep, clean living, and positive energy, died at 8:26 p.m. Thursday (May 12) after being ill and in and out of the hospital for 10 days, said her niece, Dr. Lavilla Watson. Jones died on Thursday, leaving Emma Morano, of Verbania, Italy, as the only person on Earth born in the 1800s.
Ms Jones was one of 11 children. After graduating high school in 1922, she worked in the family business picking crops. “She would save her money and then go to Bloomingdale’s….One time, when she had to get an EKG, the doctors and nurses were surprised to see her wearing that lingerie, and she said, ‘Oh sure, you can never get too old to wear fancy stuff'”.
When the AP visited in 2015, Morano was in feisty spirits, displaying the sharp wit and fine voice that she says used to stop men in their tracks. And despite losing her sight at the age of 100 to glaucoma, she served as a member of her housing complex’s tenant patrol until the age of 106.
Morano, who was born on November 29, 1899, still lives in her apartment in the lakeside town of Verbania, northwest of Milan, cooks and does housework although she has had a carer for the past 18 months.
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“Ahh, I don’t have my voice anymore”, she lamented. Guinness World Records also confirmed her death.
