This article lists Canadiansupercentenarians (people from Canada who have attained the age of at least 110 years).[1] The oldest verified Canadian person ever was Marie-Louise Meilleur, who died in 1998 aged 117 years, 230 days. As of 4 June 2024, the oldest living person in Canada is Ellen Gibb, born 26 April 1905, aged 119 years, 39 days.
a^ McCoubrey was a native of Newfoundland, which was a separate colony in 1901. It is now part of Canada.
b^ Roy was born in Quebec, which was part of the British Province of Canada in British North America before the Canadian Confederation in 1867.
Sum Ying Fung (née Eng, Chinese: 吴如英, 27 January 1899 – 6 December 2011), was an Asian Canadiansupercentenarian who was the oldest person in Canada in 2011.
Sum Ying Eng was born in Wing On Village, Yanping, China in 1899.[36] In 1926, she married Chong Lim Fung, who had been working in Canada since 1911. Chong Lim would travel to visit Sum Ying regularly in the ensuing years and they had three children.[37] However, the Chinese Exclusion Act prevented her from joining her husband in Canada. In 1954, she emigrated to Canada under the sponsorship of her husband.[38] The couple settled in Chinatown, Vancouver that year. The Fung family moved to East Vancouver upon Chong Lim's death in 1967.[37]
In 1989, she developed a brain tumour, underwent surgery, and survived. She visited China later that year and was in Beijing during the military crackdown of Tiananmen Square protests. She and her family fled Beijing among a group of German tourists.[39]
In January 2011, Sum Ying Fung became the oldest person in Canada, after the death of the previous title-holder Elizabeth Buhler.[40] The Queen congratulated Fung in a letter on her 112th birthday on 27 January 2011 and the Mayor of Vancouver declared that day "Fung Eng Sum Ying Day".[38][37]
Fung died of natural causes at the claimed age of 112 at Burnaby General Hospital in British Columbia on 6 December 2011. At the time of her death she was survived by two of her three children, 14 grandchildren, 25 great-grand children, and 2 great-great-grand children.[39][37]
Etienne Leclerc (1872–1911, m.1900–1911, his death) Hector Meilleur (1879–1972, m. 1915–1972, his death)
Children
Marie-Louise (1901–1940) Marie-Julienne (1902-1903) Marie-Albertine (1904-1904) Gerard (1906–1986) Gabrielle (1908–2004) Maurice (1910–1973) Ernest (1916–2005) Pauline (1918–1980) Olive (1920–2010) Christie (1922–1987) Alfred (1924–1986) Rita (1925–2011)
Parent(s)
Pierre Chassé (1849–1911) Febronie Levesque (1852–1912)
Marie-Louise Fébronie Meilleur (née Chassé; August 29, 1880 – April 16, 1998) was a French Canadian supercentenarian. Meilleur is the oldest validated Canadian ever and, upon the death of longevity world record holder Jeanne Calment in 1997, became the world's oldest recognized living person.[41]
She was born in Kamouraska, Quebec, where she married her first husband, Étienne Leclerc, at age 20 in 1900 who was a fisherman. Étienne Leclerc died of pneumonia on February 24, 1911, aged 39. Her father died on June 25, 1911, aged 61. Her mother died February 23, 1912, aged 59. Meilleur left two of her four surviving children in 1913 and moved to the Ontario border to help support her sister, whose children were sick with diphtheria. She returned to the Quebec region in 1939, She had six children by her second husband, Hector Meilleur, whom she married in 1915. All of her children moved out in 1942.
Her second husband Hector meilleur died in 1972, of diabetes at age 93. From there she lived first with a daughter and then in a nursing home in Corbeil. Out of her twelve children, only four survived her. She had 85 grandchildren, 80 great-grandchildren, 57 great-great-grandchildren, and four great-great-great-grandchildren. Meilleur smoked tobacco into her nineties. She quit smoking aged 102 in 1982 when she caught a cold. In 1986 when asked the secret to long life she said hard work. Hard work never kills a person. She became the oldest living person in August 4, 1997, after the death of 122-year-old Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment. Around her 117th birthday she was too weak to talk and she could only hear if someone shouted directly into her right ear.[42]
Meilleur died of a blood clot at age 117 in April 1998 in Corbeil, Ontario. One of her sons was also living in the same nursing home, and her oldest living daughter, Gabrielle Vaughan, was ninety years old. Gabrielle died in 2004 aged 96.[43][44] After Meilleur's death, American woman Sarah Knauss became the world's oldest person.[41]
^ abJeune, Bernard; et al. (May 2010). "Jeanne Calment and her Successors.". In Maier, Heiner (ed.). Supercentenarians (Demographic Research Monographs). Springer. pp. 295–298. ISBN978-3-642-11519-6.
