Ramona Trinidad Iglesias-Jordan, the world's oldest person and the last human being on Earth born in the year 1889, has died of pneumonia in Rio Piedras, a suburb of San Juan, Puerto Rico. She was 114 years and 272 days old.
The Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group, which verifies human age claims for the Guinness Book of World Records, recognised Iglesias-Jordan as the oldest person in the world only a few weeks ago.
Ironically, she died just two weeks after the woman who had incorrectly held the title, Charlotte Enterlein Benkner, who was born in Leipzig, Germany, on November 16th, 1889, and died on May 14th in Youngstown, Ohio.
Despite the recognition of Benkner as the oldest person in the world, Iglesias-Jordan's family refused to give up her claim. The family presented a baptismal certificate (written more than seven months after her birth), a 1912 marriage certificate, 1910 and 1920 census data and a birth certificate issued in 1948 as proof that she was born in Utuado, Puerto Rico, on August 31st, 1889, some 10 weeks earlier than Benkner.
Coincidentally, both Iglesias-Jordan and Benkner were the eldest of 11 children; both married, and neither had children. One sister of Iglesias-Jordan lived to the age of 103, and a brother to 101. She is survived by two sisters, aged 94 and 89.
The evidence of a genetic link to her longevity notwithstanding, she claimed it was attributable to always cooking with pork fat.
The title of world's oldest person now goes to Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper of the Netherlands, who was born on June 29th, 1890.
Iglesias-Jordan was born in a year that also saw the births of Adolf Hitler and Charlie Chaplin, the opening of Oklahoma to white settlement and completion of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. When she was born, her native Puerto Rico was still part of the Spanish empire.
She could recall the Spanish-American War of 1898 and had clear memories of San Pelipe, the hurricane that killed more than 2,000 people in Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and Florida in 1928.
Iglesias-Jordan married Alfonso Alonzo-Soler in 1912, and maintained their home while he worked as a bank manager. Although they had no children, they adopted a nephew, Roberto Torres-Iglesias, who is now 85. He had been planning a 115th birthday party for his aunt.
Ramona Trinidad Iglesias-Jordan: born August 31st, 1889; died May 29th, 2004