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World's Oldest Person Celebrates Birthday
Reuters News Agency
July 1, 2004
OLD DIDDY: Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, 114, is the world's oldest person.
HOOGEVEEN: A retired Dutch needlework teacher with a passion for football and a taste for herring has celebrated her 114th birthday with a place in the record books as the world's oldest person.
Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper was declared the world's oldest woman - and person - by Guinness World Records when the previous 114-year-old title holder Ramona Trinidad Iglesias Jordan of Puerto Rico died last month.
Van Andel-Schipper, who celebrated her birthday in a retirement home in the northern Dutch town of Hoogeveen, was born in 1890.
"I eat a herring every day and I drink a glass of orange juice every day for the vitamins," she said in a firm voice when asked at a news conference about the secret to her longevity.
The white-haired Dutch woman has seen electricity, the telephone, the car, the plane and space travel transform the world during a lifetime linking three centuries, and lived through two World Wars.
Her local municipality threw the birthday party for Van Andel-Schipper - who has become the town's biggest celebrity - at her retirement home. A choir sang and a band played at the event and local streets were decorated in blue and white bunting.
"She never spends a whole day in bed and her health is still good. However, her eyesight and hearing are not as good as when she was 108," Guinness World Records said.
Wearing a blue dress, white cardigan and with a rose pinned to her blouse, Van Andel-Schipper was presented with a silver commemorative plate by her favourite soccer team, Ajax Amsterdam, recognising her as the club's oldest fan, and with a pendant by the local mayor.
The frail, wheelchair-bound woman harbours a passion for the Dutch soccer team and, although hard of hearing, tries to listen to a radio football programme but has not gone to a game in decades.
The town also named a street outside the retirement home where she lives in her honour and dozens of the residents there celebrated her birthday with coffee and cake.
The daughter of a rural headmaster, Van Andel-Schipper was born in the town of Smilde in the northern Netherlands on June 29, 1890.
She married a tax inspector in the 1930s and was forced to sell her jewelery to buy food during the German occupation in World War Two. She was widowed after 20 years of marriage.
"I think it is nice to have lived to be this age. I'm not scared of death. Everyone has to go. I hope I don't have to suffer, that they find me dead in bed one day," she told a Dutch newspaper.
Although a Lebanese woman who has documents showing she was born in 1877 - making her at least 126 years old - could be the oldest person in the world according to a report earlier this month, Guinness World Records have not verified this.
"The oldest verified person is Hendrikje," a spokeswoman for Guinness World Records said.
Retired US postal worker and beekeeper Fred Hale, who was born on December 1, 1890, is the world's oldest man, according to Guinness World Records, which collects, confirms and presents information on world records around the world.
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