Cause of death Pneumonia | Name Ramona Iglesias-Jordan | |
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Born August 31, 1889 ( 1889-08-31 ) Utuado, Puerto Rico, Kingdom of Spain Relatives Alfonso Soler
(married 1912) Died May 29, 2004, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico Spouse Alfonso Soler (m. 1912–1970) Parents Luisa Jordan-Correa, Eduardo Iglesias-Ortiz | ||
Ramona Trinidad Iglesias-Jordan de Soler (August 31, 1889 – May 29, 2004) was a Puerto Rican supercentenarian, and, according to documents compiled in March 2004, the oldest documented person in the world after the death of Mitoyo Kawate, although German American Charlotte Benkner, who was about 3½ months younger, had been given recognition in the meantime.
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Biography
Iglesias-Jordan was born and grew up in Utuado, the child of Eduardo Iglesias-Ortiz and Luisa Jordan-Correa (some spelling variants are found in records). She attended a school without American teachers in Puerto Rico (it later became common practice to bring American teachers to teach English in Puerto Rican schools). Despite this and the fact that she was only able to attend elementary school, she was fluent in English.
She married Alfonso Soler in 1912. They were interviewed together in the 1920 United States Census when she was 30 and they lived in Arecibo. The couple later moved to the San Juan area known as Santurce. They never had any children of their own, but they adopted Roberto Torres, her nephew. Her husband died during the late 1970s, and Iglesias-Jordan then spent approximately 25 years by herself, until she moved to a new home.
Iglesias-Jordan died of pneumonia aged 114 years and 272 days, after a brief hospitalization in Río Piedras.
Record
In 1948, her birth certificate was signed at Utuado, certifying that she was born at 7:00 AM on September 1, 1889. However, a baptismal certificate of April 1890 (found in 1992), revealed that she was actually born the day before, on August 31, 1889. The 1910 United States Census recorded her aged 20. Her marriage to Alfonso Soler on December 26, 1912, aged 23 is recorded by certificate on December 28, 1912.
The Guinness World Records accepted her claim, documentation meeting their standards, and on March 29, 2004, she received a document from them, declaring her the world's oldest living woman. She joined José Miguel Agrelot, Wilfred Benítez and a handful of others as the only Puerto Ricans to enter that book.