Italy's Emma Morano, the world's oldest person, dies at 117

ROME -- Emma Morano, at 117 the world's oldest person who also is believed to have been the last surviving person born in the 1800s, died Saturday at her home in northern Italy, her physician said.

Dr. Carlo Bava said by phone Morano's caretaker had called him to say she had stopped breathing in the afternoon while sitting in an armchair at her home in Verbania, a town on Italy's Lake Maggiore.

Bava said he last had seen his patient Friday when "she thanked me and held my hand," as she did every time he called on her. While Morano increasingly had been spending more time sleeping and less time speaking in recent weeks, she still had eaten her daily raw egg and biscuits that day, he said.

A woman in Jamaica, Violet Brown, who was born in that Caribbean island March 10, 1900, now is considered the oldest known person in the world, according to a list kept by the Gerontology Research Group. Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness tweeted his congratulations to her.

Morano's doctor, who lives a few blocks away from his patient, had been her physician for nearly a quarter of a century.

Morano, born Nov. 29, 1899, had been living in a tidy, one-room apartment, where she was kept company by her caregiver and two elderly nieces.

"She didn't suffer. I'm happy she didn't suffer but passed away that way, tranquilly," Bava said Saturday.

He said she had been her usual chatterbox self until a few weeks ago. Since then, it was clear "she was slowly fading away" and spending nearly all day in bed, Bava said.

Last fall on her birthday, Morano declared: "I'm happy I have turned 117!"

Bava has previously said Morano lost a son to crib death when he was 6 months old.

Morano left her husband in 1938 because he beat her. She "abandoned the husband in the Fascist era, when women were supposed to be very submissive," Bava said in a 2015 interview. "She was always very decisive."

Morano began working in a factory making jute bags when she was 16. Then she worked at a hotel, working way beyond the usual retirement age.

Besides work, she enjoyed herself. She was considered a good dancer with a beautiful singing voice in her youth.

She also defied health advice, Bava said Saturday. Some doctors had warned her against eating three eggs daily, which she did for years, but she ignored their advice.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School visited her in 2014 as part of a study into immunity to diseases, the Italian news agency ANSA said.

Frances D'Emilio is on twitter at www.twitter.com/fdemilio.