World's oldest woman, Maria Esther de Capovilla, dead at 116

<p>Maria Esther de Capovilla, the woman Guinness World Records considered the oldest person on Earth, has died in her native Ecuador, her granddaughter said Monday. She was 116.</p><p>Her likely successor is a woman from Tennessee.</p><p>Capovilla died early Sunday in a hospital in the coastal city of Guayaquil, said Catherine Capovilla, a property manager and real estate agent in Miami. A funeral was planned for Monday.</p><p>Capovilla died two days after coming down with pneumonia.</p><p>Born on Sept. 14, 1889, the same year as Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler, Capovilla was married the year the United States entered World War I _ 1917 _ and widowed in 1949.</p><p>Robert Young, a senior consultant on gerontology for Guinness World Records, said Elizabeth Bolden of Memphis, Tenn., is now the oldest known person alive. She is also 116, but was born 11 months after Capovilla.</p><p>"Guinness World Records will have to make an official announcement from London," he said. "For all practical purposes, the next oldest person is going to be presumed to be Elizabeth Bolden.</p><p>Capovilla was confirmed as the oldest living person on Dec. 9, 2005, after her family sent details of her birth and marriage certificates to the British-based publisher. Emiliano Mercado Del Toro of Puerto Rico retains the title as oldest man. He turned 115 last Monday.</p><p>Three of Capovilla's five children _ Irma, Hilda, and son Anibal _ are still alive, along with 12 grandchildren, 20 great-grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren, Catherine Capovilla told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.</p><p>Capovilla came from a well-to-do family. When she was young, she liked to embroider, paint, play piano and dance the waltz at parties, the family said.</p><p>She always ate three meals a day and never smoked or drank hard liquor. "Only a small cup of wine with lunch and nothing more," Irma told the AP in December.</p><p>For the past 20 years, Capovilla had lived with elder daughter Hilda. Her calm disposition may have been the secret to her longevity.</p><p>"She always had a very tranquil character," Irma said. "She does not get upset by anything. She takes things very calmly and she has been that way her whole life."</p><p>In recent years, she became less communicative as her hearing worsened and her memory has started to fade, her family said.</p><p>"She was in good shape until she had a bout of pneumonia and she died unexpectedly. Her family was expecting to have a 117th birthday party," said Young, speaking from Atlanta. "They had recently said that she was in good shape."</p><p>The oldest person ever whose age was authenticated, according to Guinness, was a woman named Jeanne Louise Calment, who lived to 122 years and 164 days. She was born in France on Feb. 21, 1875, and died at a nursing home in Arles in southern France on Aug. 4, 1997.</p>

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