Amalia López Celis, a former longevity claimant who was reported to have died at age 116 in 2014, has been officially validated by LongeviQuest as a supercentenarian. However, research determined that she was actually two years younger than claimed, passing away at the age of 113 years and 301 days.
Amalia López Celis was born in Santiago Miahuatlán, Puebla, on 18 September 1900. She claimed to have been born on 10 July 1898, which would have made her 116 years and 6 days old at the time of her passing. However, research conducted by LongeviQuest indicated that she was actually two years younger.
She left her home at age 13 to move to the town of Tlacotepec de Benito Juárez, Puebla, where she lived with José María Carrasco, a railroad worker with whom she had four children. José María Carrasco was murdered when Amalia was very young, which radically changed her life. She had to sell part of her land due to a dispute with her brother-in-law and ended up taking refuge, along with her four children, in the Señor del Calvario Church in Tlecotepec de Benito Juárez, Puebla. In 1982, her daughter-in-law Ernestina Escalante took care of her.
Amalia López Celis passed away in Mexico City, on 16 July 2014.
At the time of her passing, she was the nation’s oldest known living resident. Following her validation, she was retroactively recognized as the oldest known woman to have died in Mexico, a title she held until it was later surpassed by Sofía Mendoza Valencia.
