Arguably the world’s oldest woman died at the age of 127 in western Mexico, a government agency that verified her age said on Friday.
Leandra Becerra was born in the northern border state of Tamaulipas on Aug. 31, 1887, and died on Thursday morning at her home in Zapopan in the western state of Jalisco, Mexico‘s National System for Integral Family Development, or DIF, said.
Becerra has not been included on lists of the world’s oldest people because she had not previously had official documentation.
The DIF did not give the cause of death. Her grandson, 70-year-old Samuel Alvear, said she simply stopped breathing, having developed problems with her lungs a few months ago.
He said she used to regale him with stories about the Mexican Revolution, which began in 1910, when she would make tortillas for the soldiers.
“She met Pancho Villa,” he said she had told him, referring to the revolutionary general.
Guadalupe Diaz, the head of the metropolitan center for the elderly in Zapopan, said Becerra had five children, who had all died, adding that by 2011, she had 161 descendents.
Alvear said Becerra would be cremated on Saturday.
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