The world’s second oldest woman has died aged 116 at a nursing home in Japan. Farmer’s wife Fusa Tatsumi died on 12th December at a care h...
The world’s second oldest woman has died aged 116 at a nursing home in Japan.
Farmer’s wife Fusa Tatsumi died on 12th December at a care home in Kashiwara, Osaka Prefecture, after eating her favourite meal of bean-paste jelly, reports local media.
Fusa, born on 25th April 1907, was Japan’s oldest person and had never been seriously ill or injured except when she broke her thigh bone in a fall in her 70s.
Fusa and her farmer husband Ryutaro raised three children, said local media, and worked long hours in the fields to make ends meet.
Her family put her long life down to the hard physical work she’d carried out for decades carrying baskets of harvested peaches and grapes on her back.
An official in Osaka’s Kashiwara city told local media: ‘Tatsumi died aged 116 at a care facility in Osaka on Tuesday.”
Osaka governor Hirofumi Yoshimura sent her family his condolences and recalled the party to celebrate her longevity last September.
He said: ‘I still remember how healthy Ms Fusa Tatsumi was. I sincerely pray for her soul.
Fusa became Japan’s oldest person after the death of 119-year-old Kane Tanaka in April last year.
‘I think she did great to get to this age,’ Tatsumi’s eldest son, Kanji, 76, told local media.
The mother-of-two was passionate about growing chrysanthemum flowers and flower arranging as a hobby. But while gardening in her 70s, she fell and broke her femur – the only serious injury she sustained in her life.
Tatsumi was healthy enough to live in her family home until she was 106. She would eat three meals a day and was careful to have a healthy diet consisting of vegetables, fish and a small amount of meat.
Her care home said she would drink one litre of water a day and would keep a plastic bottle and cup within reach of her bed. They added that Tatsumi, at the age of 110, would do her own makeup and often chat to staff.
Tatsumi was the second oldest woman in the world but her death means that Edith Ceccarelli, from the US, now holds that honour.
