RIP: Marie-Simone Capony

Marie-Simone Capony
14 Mar 1894 - 15 Sep 2007

ZUI this article from RIA Novosti:

France's super-centenarian, Marie-Simone Capony, died Saturday at the age of 113 in Cannes, local media said Wednesday.

Capony, a former librarian, was born in 1894, and was the fifth-oldest person in the world. She became France's oldest person in August 2006 after the death of the 114-year-old Camille Loiseau.

"She died peacefully from heart failure," her nephew, Rene Capony, said.

And this from the International Herald-Tribune:

Capony never married after a young aviator to whom she had been engaged was killed in World War I. She lived her entire life in Cannes, where she worked as a librarian.

Capony was recently listed as the world's fifth-oldest living person on the Web site of the Gerontology Research Group at the UCLA School of Medicine, which documents people over 100.

According to the Gerontology Research Group (GRG), which keeps records on verified supercentenarians (people who have reached their 110th birthday), the oldest woman in France is now Clementine Solignac, born 7 September 1894; she is the world's 7th-oldest living person.

The GRG also report that Myra Nicholson died on 20 September 2007. Nicholson, born in Australia on 14 December 1894, was at the time of her death the oldest person in Australia and the 11th-oldest person in the world. (I haven't been able to find any news articles concerning her death.)

GRG's list of validated living supercentenarians currently includes 74 people: 69 women and 5 men. Six of the ten oldest live in the United States; all are women. (The oldest man, Tomoji Tanabe of Japan, is number 22 on the list.)