US woman named world's oldest person at 115
New York, Dec. 7 (ANI)
A woman from Iowa has been crowned the oldest person in the world, after previous record holder Besse Cooper of Georgia passed away at age 116 on Tuesday.
Dina Manfredini, who is 115 years and 245 days old, was born in Italy on April 4, 1897 and arrived in US as an immigrant, when she was just 23 years old, with her late husband, Riccardo Manfredini, in 1920.
"I'm old, old lady, but I work. Work hard. I like work," the New York Daily News quoted her as telling The Des Moines Register back in 2004, when she moved into a nursing home at age 110.
Manfredini has held a wide range of jobs in her early years, from cracking eggs at a food-processing plant to filling shells with gunpowder on an assembly line during World War II.
She also cleaned homes on the side until she was 90 years old.
"You know, she worked all her life and she did everything in moderation," one of her daughters told WHO-TV the secret to her mother's longevity in April, when the family celebrated her 115th birthday.
She currently lives at the Bishop Drumm Retirement Center in Johnston, just north of Des Moines.
Though Manfredini's hearing is poor, she is relatively healthy and can move around with the help of a walker.