World's Oldest Person Dies Aged 116
The world's oldest person has died at the age of 116.
Susannah Mushatt Jones, who had been living in a care home in Brooklyn, New York, for more than 30 years, died on Thursday night.
She had been ill for the past 10 days, said Robert Young, of the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group, which holds a database keeping tabs of the world's longest-living people.
Ms Jones - who was known as Miss Susie - was born on 7 July 1899 into a family of 11 in a small farm town near Montgomery, Alabama.
As a child, she went to a special school for young black girls, leaving in 1922 after graduating.
She then returned to the family, working full time helping them pick crops.
The following year, Miss Susie headed north to New Jersey to work as a nanny.
That job eventually led her to New York.
"She adored kids," Miss Susie's niece, Lois Judge, said in an interview last year as she revealed her aunt had been married for a "few" years but had never had children herself.
Once settled in New York, Miss Jones joined up with a group of women to start a scholarship fund for young African-American women to go to college.
Miss Jones, the very last surviving American to be born in the 1800s, remained active with her housing association until she reached the age of 106.
She became Guinness World Records' official oldest person last year, after the death of 117-year-old Misao Okawa.
Family members put down her longevity to a love of family and generosity to others.
Ms Judge also said she thought that plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables in her aunt's early life had helped.
The world's oldest person is now 116-year-old Emma Morano, of Verbania, Italy.
