Tomiko Itooka, a Japanese girl born earlier than the beginning of World Struggle I and the sinking of the Titanic who was believed to be the oldest individual on the earth, died at a nursing house in Ashiya, Japan. She was 116.
In an announcement launched on Saturday, the mayor of Ashiya stated Ms. Itooka handed away final Sunday. He didn’t give a trigger, however native information media studies stated she died peacefully of problems associated to previous age.
“I provide my deepest condolences,” stated the mayor, Ryosuke Takashima. “Ms. Itooka gave us nice braveness and hope all through her lengthy life. I want to categorical my gratitude as soon as once more.”
Ms. Itooka was declared the oldest living person by Guinness World Records in September after the death of Maria Branyas Morera of Spain at age 117.
Ms. Itooka was born Tomiko Yano on Could 23, 1908, within the metropolis of Osaka, one in every of three kids in a household that ran a clothes retailer. At the moment, her nation was a rising imperial energy that had simply defeated czarist Russia in conflict and was embarking on growth into mainland Asia.
Within the 12 months of her delivery, Japan signed an settlement with President Theodore Roosevelt’s secretary of state that averted battle with the USA in change for Washington recognizing Japan’s annexation of the Korean Peninsula. In the course of the span of her life, she noticed her nation emerge as an Asian colonial empire, fall in fiery defeat in 1945 and rise once more as an industrial large and peaceable democracy.
Rising up in prewar Japan, she performed volleyball in highschool earlier than marrying the proprietor of a textile firm, Kenji Itooka, with whom she had two daughters and two sons. Throughout World Struggle II, she stayed in Japan to run the enterprise whereas her husband went to Korea, then a Japanese colony, to supervise a manufacturing facility there.
“She single-handedly managed a Japanese workplace and raised her kids throughout this era,” according to the Gerontology Research Group, which retains a database of the world’s oldest individuals.
In 1979, her husband died after 51 years of marriage. Ms. Itooka then moved to Ashiya, a metropolis exterior Osaka, the place she remained an avid hiker into her 80s. At 100, she was stated to be nonetheless ascending the stone steps of her native Shinto shrine with out a cane.
When as soon as requested by native information media for the key of her longevity, she reportedly credited consuming bananas and consuming Calpis, a Japanese dairy drink. Ms. Itooka is survived by one daughter, one son and an unknown variety of her 5 grandchildren.
Miharu Nishiyama and Hisako Ueno contributed reporting.
