World's oldest person, 114, dies in Puerto Rico

By Myrna Oliver
Los Angeles Times

Ramona Iglesias-Jordan

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most e-mailed articles

Her death was confirmed by Dr. L. Stephen Coles of the Gerontology Research Group in Los Angeles, which verifies human-age claims for Guinness World Records.

Coles' group and Guinness officially recognized Mrs. Iglesias-Jordan as the oldest person in the world only a few weeks ago.

She died just two weeks after the woman who had incorrectly held the title from November through April: Charlotte Enterlein Benkner, who was born in Leipzig, Germany, on Nov. 16, 1889, and died May 14 in Youngstown, Ohio.

Despite the designation of Benkner as the oldest person in the world, Mrs. Iglesias-Jordan's family refused to give up, said Robert Young, senior claims investigator for the Gerontology Research Group. The family presented a baptismal certificate, 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 Aug. 31, 1889 — 10 weeks earlier than Benkner.

After verification, both the Gerontology Research Group and Guinness in April designated Mrs. Iglesias-Jordan as the world's oldest person.

Coincidentally, noted Young, both Iglesias-Jordan and Benkner were the eldest of 11 children; both married, and neither had children. One of Mrs. Iglesias-Jordan's sisters lived to 103, and a brother lived to 101. She is survived by two sisters, ages 94 and 89.

"The real secret was in the genes," Young said of Mrs. Iglesias-Jordan's longevity, discounting her own attribution 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 June 29, 1890.

Mrs. Iglesias-Jordan was born in a year that also saw the births of Adolf Hitler and Charlie Chaplin; the Johnstown, Pa., flood; the opening of Oklahoma to white settlement; and the completion of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

When she was born, her native Puerto Rico was still a part of the Spanish empire.
 
Young said Mrs. Iglesias-Jordan could recall the Spanish-American War of 1898, and told him that after the war Americans arrived and introduced English.

He said she also had clear memories of San Felipe, the hurricane that killed more than 2,000 people in Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and Florida in 1928.

Mrs. Iglesias-Jordan married Alfonso Alonzo-Soler in 1912, and she kept house 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.