Susannah Mushatt Jones celebrates 116th birthday: World's oldest

The world's oldest living person, the daughter of sharecroppers and granddaughter of slaves, celebrated her 116th birthday on Monday in New York.

Susannah Mushatt Jones marked the occasion privately with family but a public celebration is planned for Tuesday, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

Susannah Mushatt Jones is pictured with a certificate from Guinness World Records proclaiming her as the world's oldest woman in New York. (Reuters)

Jones was born in Alabama in 1899 and after graduating from high school moved north in 1922 to New Jersey and then New York, where she worked as a housekeeper and childcare provider, according to the Guinness World Records and the Vandalia Senior Center in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, where she lives.

Jones, who retired in 1965, says lots of sleep is the secret to her longevity, Guinness said in confirming her status as the oldest living person. She also said she never smoked or drank, according to Senior Center officials.

Jones has lost her eyesight and has difficulties hearing, said Robert Young, director of the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group's Supercentenarian Research and Database Division.

Susannah Mushatt Jones celebrates her 115th birthday at Vandalia Senior Center in New York in this July 8, 2014. (Reuters)

She was the third of 11 children born to sharecroppers, and her grandparents were slaves, according to a book written about her by a family member, Young said.

The book, 'Susannah Our Incredible 114-Year-Old Aunt', said she is mostly African-American with some Native American ancestry, he said.

She never had children but has more than 100 nieces and nephews.

Of her husband, according to the nursing home, she says: "I don't know what happened to him."

Jones inherited the title of world's oldest living person after the June 17 death of Jeralean Talley, who was 116, in Michigan.

She is the third consecutive American to hold the title of world's oldest person, Young said.

The world's second oldest person is Emma Morano-Martinuzzi, a 115-year-old woman living in Italy, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

The oldest verified person was Jeanne Calment of France, who died in 1997 at 122 years and 164 days, Young said.

World's oldest man dies at 112

The world's oldest man, Sakari Momoi, has died in Japan at the ripe old age of 112, an official said Tuesday.

Momoi, born months before the Wright brothers made their first successful flight, passed away late Sunday, said the official at Saitama City, north of Tokyo, where he had lived for many years.

The supercentenarian, recognised as the world's oldest male at the age of 111 last year, died of kidney failure in a care home in Tokyo.

"We heard from his family... that his health worsened one or two weeks ago," the official said.
Momoi, a former high school principal who was born on February 5, 1903, received a certificate from Guinness World Records confirming the achievement last year.

Dressed in a black suit, white shirt and silver tie, Momoi told assembled media that he did not plan on going anywhere just yet.

"I want to live for about two more years," he said in soft voice at that time.

He was born in Minamisoma, Fukushima, an area badly hit by the deadly 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami in 2011 that triggered the world worst nuclear crisis in a generation.

According to the US-based Gerontology Research Group, the title of world's oldest man now passes to Japan's Yasutaro Koide, also 112 years old and just over a month younger than Momoi.

Japan is known for the longevity of its people and around a quarter of its population of 128 million is aged 65 or older.

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