A 116-year-old woman listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living person anywhere around the globe died on Tuesday (December 4) in a nursing home in the U.S. state of Georgia soon after having her hair done.
Besse Cooper’s son, Sidney Cooper, said she died peacefully at the Park Place nursing home in Monroe, Georgia.
He said his mother, who taught school until her first child was born in 1929, had four children and they are all alive and well.
Besse Cooper was the first person certified as the world's oldest by Guinness World Records in January 2011.
The title was taken from her for a few months when it was discovered that Brazilian-born Maria Gomes Valentim was 48 days older.
Guinness gave the title back to Cooper after Gomes Valentim died in June 2011.