From: imbibe@mindspring.com   
      
   Born Lucile Randon on Feb. 11, 1904 (the year New York opened its first subway   
   station), Sister André grew up in a Protestant family of six in the southern   
   town of Alès. She worked as a governess in Paris and later converted to Roman   
   Catholicism,    
   baptized at the age of 26. She joined a charitable order about two decades   
   later and took on her ecclesiastical title.   
      
   Sister André was assigned to a hospital in Vichy, where she cared for orphans   
   and others for three decades.   
      
   She was known for her generosity, often aiding older people younger than   
   herself. “Sister André was above all a profoundly good and endearing woman,   
   dedicated to others,” Mr. Falco, the mayor, said.   
      
   Besides, she told reporters last year, “Work kept me alive.”   
      
   Sister André lived through the administrations of 18 French presidents and 10   
   popes and always had vivid memories of global events, including the two world   
   wars, her relatives said. She said in interviews that she saw many French   
   soldiers who fought in    
   the Algerian war for independence, 1954-62, returning traumatized to the   
   hospital where she worked.   
      
   “Since I came into this world, I have only seen wars and fights,” she said   
   in an interview as she celebrated her 118th birthday.   
      
   Sister André also survived the influenza epidemic of 1918-19, which took the   
   lives of some 50 million people worldwide.   
      
   Her surviving Covid-19 in early 2021 was an uplifting story during the   
   coronavirus pandemic, when nursing homes were particularly at risk. Nearly all   
   of the 88 residents of her facility became infected, and several died.   
      
   “It’s difficult to fathom that someone born before the patenting of   
   plastic, zips or even bras was alive well into the 21st century, and robust   
   enough to beat Covid-19,” Craig Glenday, the editor in chief of Guinness   
   World Records, said in a    
   statement.   
      
   https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/18/world/europe/sister-andre-wor   
   ds-oldest-person-118-france.html   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)