Oldest Woman Dies
Marie Bremont, a 115-year-old French woman believed to be the world's oldest person, died early Wednesday.
Bremont died in her sleep at 2:15 a.m. at the retirement home where she lived in Cande, about 150 miles west of Paris, according to her nephew, Georges Crespin.
She was considered the world's oldest person since the death of Eva Morris of Britain in November, just four days before her 115th birthday.
Bremont is the second French woman to hold the honor. Jeanne Calment of France died Aug. 4, 1997, at age 122.
At Bremont's 115th birthday on April 25, she dressed up in a red suit and shared strawberry cake and a glass of white wine with friends at the retirement home. She listened as three girls — each born almost exactly a century after Bremont — recited a poem written by staff members of the home.
Bremont's sight and hearing had deteriorated, but home director Joseph Foucher said she told him after the party that she was "proud to be the doyenne of humanity."
Surviving the tests of time hasn't always been rosy. At age 103, Bremont was hit by a car and broke her arm.
She lost a first husband, Constant Lemaitre, during World War I and a second, taxi driver Florentin Bremont, in 1967. "I had two good husbands. I have always been happy," she once said.
Born in 1886, the daughter of a lumberjack, Bremont began working at age 8 on a farm where she carried buckets of pig feed. Over time, she worked as a pharmaceutical factory worker, nanny and seamstress.
Elizabeth Israel, who lives on the Caribbean island of Dominica, is considered there as the world's oldest living person. She celebrated her 126th birthday in January, according to officials there. The Guinness Book of Records is investigating that claim.
Crespin said a private funeral would be held Friday in the Maine-et-Loire region where the retirement home is located.
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