Maria Esther de Capovilla

China Daily, August 29, 2006

Maria Esther de Capovilla, the oldest person in the world according to Guinness World Records, has died at 116 years of age.

Capovilla died last Sunday at 3 am local time (0800 GMT) in a hospital in the coastal city of Guayaquil two days after coming down with pneumonia, said her granddaughter Catherine Capovilla. Her funeral was planned for yesterday.

Born on September 14, 1889 the same year as Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler Capovilla was married in 1917 and widowed in 1949.

Robert Young, senior consultant for Gerontology for Guinness World Records, said Elizabeth Bolden, of Memphis, Tennessee, is the likely successor as the oldest person.

Capovilla was confirmed as the oldest living person on December 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.

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, the last of whom was born in 2003, Catherine Capovilla said in an interview.

Capovilla was from a well-to-do Ecuadorean family that traced its lineage to Spanish nobility. "The family has a heraldic shield from the Spanish ancestry," said Young.

Her father was a colonel in Ecuador's army. In her youth, Capovilla liked to embroider, paint, play piano and dance the waltz at parties, the family said. She also visited a nearby plantation, where she would drink fresh milk from donkeys as well as cows.

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," said Irma last December.