The French woman, Jeanne Louise Calment is officially recognized as the oldest verified person who had ever lived! She was born in 21-02-1875 and died in 04-08-1997 for a grand total of 122 years & 164 days of twiddling her thumbs as she never lifted a finger to earn a living!
What prompted me to put this little article together and bring the oldest of old bags to your attention is the following hilarious paragraph from her life story…
“In 1965, aged 90, with no living heirs, Jeanne Calment signed a deal to sell her former apartment to lawyer André-François Raffray, on a contingency contract. Raffray, then aged 47, agreed to pay her a monthly sum of 2,500 francs until she died, an agreement sometimes called a "reverse mortgage". Raffray ended up paying Calment more than the equivalent of $180,000, which was more than double the apartment's value. His widow was still paying Calment until she died, after Raffray had died of cancer at the age of 77.”
I’ll bet the 47 year old astute lawyer must’ve thought she’d croak in a year or two and he’d get the bargain of a lifetime!
Another interesting bit of info is this…
“Calment smoked until she was 117, and only quit when she could no longer see well enough to light the cigarettes.”
So much for health risks from smoking!
And finally, I present you with a photo Gallery of Madame Jeanne-Louise Calment (1875 – 1997) so that you may peruse her mummification process…
http://www.grg.org/JCalmentGallery.htm
For the full Wiki story…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment
So what is the secret to human longevity if the oldest known human is anything to go by? Well it looks like no work, plenty of fags, and plenty of hobbies!
Regards, GR.
