117-Year-Old Woman’s Secret? Attitude

ARLES, France —  Jeanne Calment is 117 years old.

The world’s oldest citizen according to the Guinness Book of Records, she can remember meeting the impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh when she was a girl.

To her, 80-year-olds are mere spring chickens.

She has been widowed for longer than most people are married--more than 30 years--but still enjoys the good things in life like chocolate and the odd glass of port. She even allows herself an occasional cigarette after lunch.

A source of pride in her hometown of Arles in the south of France, she is modest, even a little skeptical, about her title as the doyenne of humanity.

“The oldest in Europe, perhaps,” she suggested in an interview. “I guess that’s already pretty good.”

According to Guinness, only one person in 2 billion lives to be more than 115.

Calment puts her exceptional longevity down to a healthy lifestyle and happy-go-lucky character.

Her blue eyes have an impish expression. Her relatively unwrinkled face is framed by a cloud of snow-white curls.

Though now too frail to walk, she enjoys being wheeled out to sit by the small lake in front of the nursing home where she has lived for five years.

Before that, Calment lived in her own apartment above a draper’s shop in this ancient Provencal town where she was born Feb. 21, 1875.

The shop belonged to her husband. Calment said Van Gogh, who spent most of the last three years of his life in Arles, used to buy his canvas there.

“He was a wild young man,” she recalled. “Not the sort my parents wanted me to mix with.”

Calment, who was 15 when Van Gogh died, shared the Dutch painter’s love of art. Though she never had to work, she kept herself busy painting and engraving.

She married at the age of 2O in 1895, just six years after the completion of the Eiffel Tower.

In spite of her sheltered upbringing, she does not really envy young people of today.

“They have greater freedom, but it makes life more complicated,” she commented. “And with so much unemployment, they have more to worry about than we did.”

With her husband, Calment traveled through France and Spain, but was always pleased to come back to Arles, with its Roman arena and the beautiful countryside that inspired Van Gogh.

Her husband died when he was in his 8Os, and Calment has since lost her only daughter and grandson.

Diminishing sight prevents her from watching television, and increasing deafness means she can no longer listen to her personal stereo.

Her friends keep her up to date on news. Always a keen letter-writer, she now dictates them to a “young” friend in her 8Os. Every birthday brings a pile of mail, as well as dozens of journalists.

She enjoys being the center of attention, but doesn’t let it go to her head.

“I’ve been very lucky,” she said. “I’ve never been ill, and everyone is kind to me.”

She shares with fellow pensioners the many boxes of chocolates and other gifts she is given.

“Giving has always been one of my greatest pleasures,” she explained.