Salustiano ‘Shorty’ Sanchez was born in 1901 – the year Queen Victoria died and Picasso held his first exhibition.
Salustiano “Shorty” Sanchez, 112, credited his long life to a daily intake of bananas and headache pills
The world’s oldest man – a card-playing musician and ex-sugar cane worker – has died at the grand old age of 112.
Salustiano ‘Shorty’ Sanchez died at his New York State nursing home on Friday.
He married his wife, Pearl, in 1934 and had two children, seven grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and five great-great grandchildren.
Mr Sanchez credited his long life to eating one banana and taking one Anacin headache pill every day.
The former builder was born in El Tejado de Bejar, Spain, in 1901 – the year of Queen Victoria’s death, the Butch Cassidy train robbery and Picasso’s first ever exhibtion.
After leaving school at the age of ten, Mr Sanchez worked in the sugarcane fields of Cuba before emigrating to the United States, where he laboured in Kentucky coal mines.
Guinness said that Sanchez liked to work in his garden, do crossword puzzles, and play gin rummy every night with friends.
He was also a talented musician, playing the dulzania – a Spanish instrument like an
oboe.
The Guinness Book of World Records officially recognised him as the world’s oldest man in June following the death of 116-year-old Jiroemon Kimura from Japan.
His death means that the title of world’s oldest man now goes to 111-year-old Arturo Licata of Italy.
The world’s oldest woman is Misao Okawa of Japan at 115.
The greatest authenticated age for any human is 122 years, 164 days by Jeanne Louise Calment of France.(mirror.co.uk)
