She had lived for the last 20 years in the Les Roches home for the elderly in Orvin in canton Bern.
“She was a very approachable and jovial person,” said Stéphan Chopard, director of the Résidence Les Roches, on Monday, referring to a report in the Journal du Jura. She was considered to be the oldest woman in Switzerland. Born on March 26, 1912 she was able to maintain a degree of independence until shortly before her death on February 23.
The home’s director had no explanation for her unusual longevity but emphasised the positive and cheerful spirit shown by the centenarian. It was in 2021 that the woman from Biel was awarded the title of “Switzerland’s oldest person”. But the proof was not easy to establish because of the difficulty in finding information, the director of the home explained to press agency Keystone-ATS.
“We had to do some cross-checking, but it was a student in St Gallen who was taking part in a study on super centenarians who confirmed that she was indeed the oldest woman in Switzerland,” said Chopard. The director added that no one has contested this longevity record.
Translated from French by DeepL/ac
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
Popular Stories
More
Demographics
How retiring baby boomers could crash Swiss property market
This content was published on
Parliament has unanimously approved the government's direct counter-proposal to the popular initiative of the Swiss Freedom Movement.
This content was published on
Gabriel Brenna, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Liechtensteinische Landesbank (LLB) since 2021, has been appointed head of Raiffeisen.
This content was published on
“Wait and see" seems to be the position adopted by large Swiss companies in the face of US President Donald Trump's trade policy.
Eurostar plans direct link between London and Geneva
This content was published on
The Eurostar railway company wants to offer a direct connection between Switzerland and Great Britain for the first time in the coming years.
Lucy Liu to receive career award at Locarno Film Festival
This content was published on
The Locarno78 Career Achievement Award goes to American actress Lucy Liu. The award will be presented to her on Thursday 14 August on the Piazza Grande.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.