Tokyo: Tomiko Itooka, a Japanese woman born before the start of World War I and the sinking of the Titanic and believed to be the world’s oldest person, has died in a nursing home in Ashiya, Japan. He was 116 years old.
In a statement issued Saturday, the mayor of Ashiya said Itooka passed away last Sunday. He did not give a cause, but local media reports said she died peacefully from complications related to old age.
Tomiko Itooka in May, when she turned 116 at her nursing home in Ashiya, Japan.Credit: AP
“I offer my deepest condolences,” said Mayor Ryosuke Takashima. “Mrs. Itooka gave us great courage and hope throughout her long life. I would like to express my gratitude once again.”
Guinness World Records declared Itooka the oldest living person in September following the death of María Branyas Morera of Spain at age 117.
Itooka was born Tomiko Yano on May 23, 1908 in the city of Osaka, one of three children in a family that ran a clothing store. At the time, his country was a rising imperial power that had just defeated Tsarist Russia in war and was embarking on an expansion into continental Asia.
Charging
In the year of his birth, Japan signed an agreement with President Theodore Roosevelt’s Secretary of State that avoided conflict with the United States in exchange for Washington recognizing Japan’s annexation of the Korean Peninsula. During his lifetime, his nation emerged as an Asian colonial empire, fell to fierce defeat in 1945, and re-emerged as an industrial giant and a peaceful democracy.
She grew up in pre-war Japan and played volleyball in high school before marrying textile company owner Kenji Itooka, with whom she had two daughters and two sons. During World War II, she remained in Japan to manage the business while her husband traveled to Korea, then a Japanese colony, to supervise a factory there.
“She single-handedly ran a Japanese office and raised her children during this period,” according to the Gerontology Research Group, which maintains a database of the world’s oldest people.
