Woman Was Recognized As World’s Oldest Living Person

By MARY ROURKE

By Mary Rourke

Los Angeles Times

Yone Minagawa, recognized as the world’s oldest living person, died Monday at a hospital in Fukuoka Prefecture in Japan, according to news reports.

She was 114. The cause of her death was old age.

Minagawa had been a resident of a nursing home in Fukuoka since 2005, when she turned 112. Before that, she lived alone.

Minagawa was certified as the oldest living person on record by Guinness World Records earlier in 2007 after Emma Faust Tillman, 114, of East Hartford, Conn., died Jan. 28.

At the time, Minagawa attributed her long life to sensible eating and plenty of sleep.

Japan ranks among the nations with the longest life expectancies. Some researchers attribute this to a diet traditionally based on fish and rice.

With Minagawa’s death, the oldest living person on record is Edna Parker of Shelbyville, Ind., who also is 114 and was born nearly four months after Minagawa.

Minagawa was born Jan. 4, 1893, in Fukuoka Prefecture. She married, had five children and was widowed at an early age. She supported her family by selling vegetables and flowers that she cultivated at home.

All but one of her children has died.

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