{"id":207750,"date":"2025-01-04T14:15:04","date_gmt":"2025-01-04T14:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/04\/tomiko-itooka-of-japan-worlds-oldest-person-dies-at-116\/"},"modified":"2025-01-04T14:15:05","modified_gmt":"2025-01-04T14:15:05","slug":"tomiko-itooka-of-japan-worlds-oldest-person-dies-at-116","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/04\/tomiko-itooka-of-japan-worlds-oldest-person-dies-at-116\/","title":{"rendered":"Tomiko Itooka of Japan, World\u2019s Oldest Person, Dies at 116"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/04\/multimedia\/04japan-oldest-person-01-mhwj\/04japan-oldest-person-01-mhwj-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Tomiko Itooka of Japan, World\u2019s Oldest Person, Dies at 116\" title=\"Tomiko Itooka of Japan, World\u2019s Oldest Person, Dies at 116\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Tomiko Itooka, a Japanese woman born before the start of World War I and the sinking of the Titanic who was believed to be the oldest person in the world, died at a nursing home in Ashiya, Japan. She was 116.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a statement released on Saturday, the mayor of Ashiya said Ms. Itooka passed away last Sunday. He did not give a cause, but local news media reports said she died peacefully of complications related to old age.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI offer my deepest condolences,\u201d said the mayor, Ryosuke Takashima. \u201cMs. Itooka gave us great courage and hope throughout her long life. I would like to express my gratitude once again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Itooka was <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.guinnessworldrecords.com\/world-records\/84549-oldest-person-living\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">declared the oldest living person by Guinness World Records<\/a> in September after <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/08\/20\/world\/europe\/worlds-oldest-person-maria-branyas-dead.html\" title=\"\">the death of Maria Branyas Morera<\/a> of Spain at age 117.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Itooka was born <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wilmina.ac.jp\/foundation\/infomation\/982\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Tomiko Yano<\/a> on May 23, 1908, in the city of Osaka, one of three children in a family that ran a clothing store. At that time, her country was a rising imperial power that had just defeated czarist Russia in war and was embarking on expansion into mainland Asia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the year of her birth, Japan signed an agreement with President Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s secretary of state that averted conflict with the United States in exchange for Washington recognizing Japan\u2019s annexation of the Korean Peninsula. During the span of her life, she saw her nation emerge as an Asian colonial empire, fall in fiery defeat in 1945 and rise again as an industrial giant and peaceful democracy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Growing up in prewar Japan, she played volleyball in high school before marrying the owner of a textile company, Kenji Itooka, with whom she had two daughters and two sons. During World War II, she stayed in Japan to run the business while her husband went to Korea, then a Japanese colony, to oversee a factory there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cShe single-handedly managed a Japanese office and raised her children during this period,\u201d <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.grg-supercentenarians.org\/2024\/09\/16\/tomiko-itooka-worlds-oldest-living-person-receives-gwr-certificate-on-respect-for-the-aged-day\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">according to the Gerontology Research Group<\/a>, which keeps a database of the world\u2019s oldest people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 1979, her husband died after 51 years of marriage. Ms. Itooka then moved to Ashiya, a city outside Osaka, where she remained an avid hiker into her 80s. At 100, she was said to be still ascending the stone steps of her local Shinto shrine without a cane.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When once asked by local news media for the secret of her longevity, she reportedly credited eating bananas and drinking Calpis, a Japanese dairy drink. Ms. Itooka is survived by one daughter, one son and an unknown number of her five grandchildren.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Miharu Nishiyama<!-- --> and <!-- -->Hisako Ueno<!-- --> contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/04\/world\/asia\/oldest-person-dies-japan.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tomiko Itooka, a Japanese woman born before the start of World War I and the sinking of the Titanic who was believed to be the oldest person in the world, died at a nursing home in Ashiya, Japan. She was 116. In a statement released on Saturday, the mayor of Ashiya said Ms. Itooka passed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/04\/multimedia\/04japan-oldest-person-01-mhwj\/04japan-oldest-person-01-mhwj-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[163460,16,163797,92,7605,5926,163834,163796,163833,2306],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207750"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207752,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207750\/revisions\/207752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}