Frenchwoman Lucille Rendon, listed as the doyenne of humanity, died at the age of 118 on Tuesday. A nun known as “Sister André”, who entered orders in 1944, she died in the rest home where she lived in Toulon, in the south of France. Born in 1904, she was blind and moved around in a wheelchair. Despite her precarious state of health, she had recovered from a Covid-19 infection in 2021, just before blowing out her 117 candles.
After her recovery, she said on BFMTV: “I was not afraid to die because I do not fear death. I am happy to be among you, but I would like to be somewhere else, to join my older brother and my Grand parents”. As if longevity had finally weighed on her somewhat… People who knew her said that her life had been marked by “the taste for others and a devastating love for one’s neighbour”. Before her, another Frenchwoman, Jeanne Calment, had also been dean of humanity.
Died in 1997 at the age of 122, this one even holds to this day the record of the greatest longevity ever recorded of all humanity.