Adelina Domingues

Adelina Domingues (née Engargiola; February 19, 1888 – August 21, 2002) was an American supercentenarian who was posthumously recognized as the world's oldest living person by the Guinness Book of World Records for the last three months of her life.

Adelina Domingues

Life

Domingues was born on February 19, 1888 in Brava, in Cape Verde, in modest circumstances. She married Jose Manuel Domingues in 1906, with him emigrating to the United States shortly afterwards and her joining him there (specifically in Massachusetts) the next year, specifically in 1907. Domingues did missionary work for the Church of the Nazarene in Africa and her birth place of Cape Verde and also engaged in vigorous street-corner preaching while she lived in both Boston and New Bedford in Massachusetts. Her husband Jose died from cancer in 1950. She lived alone until the age of 107, when she moved into a retirement facility, and also used a wheelchair in her last years. Only one of her children lived past their teenage years–specifically Frank Domingues, who died at age 71 in 1998, predeceasing his mother by four years. After her son Frank's death, Adelina Domingues's condition began to decline and worsen. Adelina Domingues attributed her longevity to eating vegetables and beans on a daily basis and also to abstaining from any form of both alcohol and tobacco for her entire life.

She died in Spring Valley, California (in the San Diego area) at 1:30 PM Pacific Daylight Time on August 21, 2002 from congestive heart failure at the age of 114 years and 183 days. She was the last remaining undisputed person born in the 1888 or before, although by 2002 Kamato Hongo of Japan was still believed to have been older.

References

Records
Preceded by Grace Clawson	World's oldest living person May 28, 2002 - August 21, 2002	Succeeded by Mae Harrington