World’s oldest person dies in New York at age 116

Susannah Mushatt Jones passed away at a geriatric home in Brooklyn on Thursday.

In this June 22, 2015 photo, Susannah Mushatt Jones has breakfast in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Robert Young, a senior consultant for the Gerontology Research Group, says Ms. Jones -- the world's oldest person -- died at a senior home in Brooklyn on Thursday night. She was 116. Dr. Young said she had been ill for the past 10 days.

Susannah Mushatt Jones, the world’s oldest person, has died in New York at age 116.

Robert Young, a senior consultant for the Gerontology Research Group, says Ms. Jones died at a senior home in Brooklyn on Thursday night. He said she had been ill for the past 10 days.

Born in 1899, she had 10 siblings

Ms. Jones was born in a small farm town near Montgomery, Alabama, in 1899, the daughter of sharecroppers and the granddaughter of slaves. She was one of 11 siblings and attended a special school for young black girls. Family members have credited her long life to love of family and generosity to others.

After graduating from high school, she moved north in 1922 to New Jersey and then New York, where she worked as a housekeeper and childcare provider, according to Guinness World Records and the Vandalia Senior Center in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, where she lived.

She had put it to lots of sleep

Ms. Jones, who retired in 1965, had said that lots of sleep was the secret to her longevity and that she had never smoked or drank alcohol.

Ms. Jones became Guinness World Records ’ official oldest person when 117-year-old Misao Okawa died in Tokyo last year. The oldest verified person was Jeanne Calment of France, who died in 1997 at 122 years and 164 days, a research group said.

Now, Emma Morano of Italy is the oldest

Dr. Young has said 116-year-old Emma Morano, of Italy, just a few months younger than Ms. Jones, is now the unofficial world’s oldest person.