VERCELLI, Italy – Emma Martina Luigia Morano, the holder of the Guinness World Record titles for Oldest Living Person and Oldest Living Woman, has died aged 117.
Born on 29 November 1899, Emma was the last known person living who was born in the 19th century.
Raised in Italian city of Vercelli – the oldest of eight siblings – Emma later moved to Verbania on the shores of Lake Maggiore, Italy where she remained for the majority of her life.
She was confirmed as holding both Guinness World Records titles in May last year following research conducted by the Gerontology Research Group.
Emma was engaged to a man who was called to the front during the First World War. Devastatingly, she never saw him again and assumed he had died.
She married someone else in 1926 and later gave birth to a child who tragically passed away at only six months old.
Following the terrible loss of her son in 1938 she took the brave decision to leave her husband and never remarried.
Morano was five years younger than the Oldest person ever, Jeanne Louise Calment, who reached 122 years 164 days.
The Oldest person living (male) remains Holocaust survivor Israel Kristal, who celebrated his 113th birthday in September.
