Madam Klayonoh Bleaorplue in a wheelchair shortly after being decorated on July 24 by President Sirleaf. Accompanying the President was the Dean of the Cabinet, Foreign Minister Marjon Kamara. Escorting the centenarian in the wheelchair is her great granddaughter, Rosetta Glayflor
Liberia’s oldest woman, who was on July 24, 2016 decorated by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has died in Paynesville.
Madam Klayonoh Bleaorplue, who was reportedly born on March 7, 1863, during the American Civil War, died on August 2, 2016 at the residence of her relatives in Bernard Farm close to the old Omega Station in Paynesville.
According to a senior member of the family, Madam Bleaorplue got ill as a result of a motor accident which occurred near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, shortly after being decorated by President Sirleaf.
Following the honouring ceremony, Madam Bleaorplue started feeling pain in her chest and was rushed to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Sinkor.
At the JFK Hospital in Monrovia, a family member told the Daily Observer Thursday, Madam Bleaorplue was attended to by doctors and nurses in the Emergency Room (ER).
A family member also added that the centenarian was hospitalized for a week and discharged on the 2nd of August and taken home where she quietly passed away at home the same day.
The family told the Daily Observer that extensive preparations are underway by prominent Nimba citizens and other individuals to give Madam Bleaorplue a fitting burial soon.
Madam Bleaorplue was in early May discovered to be Liberia’s oldest or longest living person by a longevity researcher, the noted Liberian herbalist Kpakae L. Roberts, who has established a research center to conduct research on centenarians in order to establish a Blue Zone area for Liberia.
The major purpose of the research is to validate the authenticity of their ages, find out why they hardly ever get sick and the secret of their longevity for the benefit of others.
Madam Bleaorplue hailed from Kelley and Dubuzon, between lower Grand Gedeh and Nimba counties.
In a brief exclusive interview with Daily Observer last Thursday, a prominent Liberian, Philip Morton Simpson, born during the administration of the late President Edwin J. Barclay, urged the Liberian Government to work out modalities for the placement of Madam Bleaorplue in the Guinness
Book of Records as the world’s oldest living person.
Such initiative is critically important, Mr. Simpson noted, because it is a distinct credit to Africa and to Liberia in particular, since this oldest African republic was able to produce the world’s oldest living person, far ahead of the Japanese woman that was 117 years on her recent birthday celebrated in Japan.