Emma Morano: Europe's Oldest Person is 116 Years Old!

Emma Morano holding a portrait of her younger self

Emma Morano who is Europe’s oldest person and the second-oldest in the world, recently marked her 116th birthday. She is the oldest verified Italian person ever and the last living European person to have been born in the 19th century. Morano reached her latest milestone on Sunday, November 29th in her one-bedroom apartment in Verbania, a small town in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy.

"I’m fine and as long as it stays that way, I will remain with you,” she was quoted as saying. “If you like I can sing Parlami d’amore Mariù (Talk to me about love, Mariu).” In a vibrant mood, she added, "My singing voice used to stop men in their tracks!" After singing a bit in her weak voice, she admitted that her voice isn't as good as it used to be.

When asked about the secret to her long life, she gave her simple rules: never use drugs, eat three eggs a day, drink a glass of homemade brandy daily, have a chocolate now and then, and think positive. "For breakfast I eat biscuits with milk or water, then during the day I eat two eggs—one raw and one cooked—just like the doctor recommended when I was 20 years old (in 1919) and was anemic. For lunch I'll eat pasta and minced meat, then for dinner, I'll have just a glass of milk."

Sleep is another important factor in her longevity, going to bed before 7 each night and waking before 6am. Kicking her husband out of the house in 1938 (but staying legally married) is another factor she claims added to her long life. Morano is medication free and has been in good health for years.

Emma Martina Luigia Morano was born on 29 November 1899 in Civiasco, Vercelli, Piedmont, Italy to Giovanni Morano and Matilde Bresciani, the eldest of eight children, five daughters and three sons. When she was a child, she moved from the Sesia Valley to Ossola for her father's job, but the climate was so unhealthy there that a physician advised her family to live somewhere with a milder climate so she moved to Pallanza, on Lake Maggiore, where she still lives.

She had a long-lived family: her mother, an aunt and some of her siblings turned 90 and her sister, Angela Morano (1908–2011) died at 102. In October 1926, she married Giovanni Martinuzzi (1901–1978) and in 1937 her only child was born but died when he was only six months old. As is the custom in Italy, she retained her maiden name.

Until 1954, she was a worker for the Maioni Industry, a jute factory in her town. Then, she had another job, in the kitchen of "Collegio Santa Maria," a Marianist boarding school in Pallanza, until she was 75, when she retired.

Morano was still living alone in her home on her 116th birthday.

This video will delight you with her singing as well as her describing her diet... (In Italian)....

--Jerry Finzi


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