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Jeanne CalmentOne of the oldest people, having lived in the world for almost 123 years.
Date of Birth: 21.02.1875
Country:  France |
Content:
Biography of Jeanne Calment
Jeanne Louise Calment, born on February 21, 1875, in Arles, France, is considered one of the oldest persons to have ever lived, having reached the remarkable age of 123 years. Her birth and death dates have been officially confirmed, making her the oldest documented person in history. Calment was known as the "living memory of Arles" and the "grandmother of everyone in France."
Early Life
Jeanne Calment was born into a bourgeois family in Arles, France, fourteen years before the Eiffel Tower was constructed. She witnessed the building of the iconic landmark. Approximately fifteen years after her birth, the invention of cinematography and the publication of Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" occurred. Calment's older brother and sister, Antoine and Marie, passed away before her birth. Another older brother, Francois, lived a long life and passed away at the age of 97 in 1962.
Calment had a brief encounter with the artist Vincent van Gogh when he visited her father's shop. According to her, van Gogh had a strong smell of alcohol and an unpleasant demeanor, and she refused to serve him. However, the 1990 film "Van Gogh, Vincent et moi" suggests that Calment did sell him canvases for his paintings.
Marriage and Family
At the age of 21, in 1896, Calment married her wealthy distant relative, Fernand Nicolas Calment. Her husband managed a prosperous store, allowing her the luxury of not having to work, which may have contributed to her exceptional longevity. Calment enjoyed playing tennis, swimming, and roller skating, all of which contributed to her good health. She only stopped cycling at the age of 100.
On January 19, 1898, the couple celebrated the birth of their daughter, Yvonne Marie Nicole Calment. Yvonne married a captain in the artillery in 1926 and gave birth to a son named Frederic in December of the same year. Sadly, Yvonne passed away from pneumonia in 1932, and ten years later, Jeanne became a widow when Fernand died after eating spoiled cherries. Their grandson also died in a car accident in 1963, leaving Jeanne without any direct descendants.
Later Life
At the age of 90, in 1965, Jeanne Calment used the services of a lawyer named Andre-Francois Raffray to establish a "reverse mortgage." According to the agreement, Monsieur Raffray was to pay Calment 2,500 French francs every month until her death, and then he would inherit her apartment. However, Raffray passed away thirty years later, and his relatives had to continue the monthly payments to Calment. When she died, they paid an amount twice the value of the apartment.
Calment remained in good health for most of her long and peaceful life. She took up fencing at the age of 85 and included olive oil in her diet, which she also applied to her skin. She never denied herself a modest glass of wine or her love for chocolate, consuming almost a kilogram of chocolate every week.
Calment was a smoker, having developed the habit at the age of 21. She quit smoking at the age of 117, after 95 years of smoking, following a surgery. She would have likely continued to walk independently until her last breath if she hadn't fallen and broken her hip a month before her 115th birthday, which forced her to use a wheelchair. At the age of 110, she moved into a nursing home after a fire in her apartment, which she accidentally caused. In 1988, she became the oldest documented person in history at the age of 112.
Throughout her later years, reporters, doctors, demographers, and other interviewers visited Calment regularly. In 1989, George Garoyan published a scientific dissertation about her. Calment, with her sense of humor, remarked that she had to wait 110 years to become famous. In the months leading up to her death, Calment was mostly deaf and blind but remained in relatively good health. She recited poetry she had learned as a child and solved math problems without difficulty.
Jeanne Calment passed away on August 4, 1997, at the age of 122 years, 5 months, and 14 days. The staff at the nursing home stated that her death was due to natural causes.
Calment's longevity may have been attributed to her positive attitude towards life, good genetics, love for sports and walking, and the antioxidants found in chocolate. When asked about her future on her 120th birthday, she humorously replied, "Very short."
