Yoshi Baba [Japanese: 馬場よ志] was a Japanese supercentenarian whose age was validated by the Gerontology Research Group (GRG). At the time of her death, she was the fifth-oldest validated living person in Japan, behind an anonymous woman of Hyogo, Fusa Tatsumi, Yoshi Otsunari, and Kane Tanaka.
BIOGRAPHY
Yoshi Baba was born in Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, on 3 June 1907. She was the youngest of nine siblings. Her family descended from samurai retainers who had accompanied their lord to Kofu. Her father continued to wear a chonmage (a traditional samurai topknot), and her mother also kept her hair in a traditional mage style, reflecting the family’s samurai heritage.
Baba graduated from Kofu High School and the Yamanashi Women’s Normal School, after which she became an elementary school teacher. In the early Showa era, she married her husband, who had worked as a teacher at both the elementary and junior high school levels. While raising her children, she taught at elementary schools in Abuko and Kofu for about twenty years.
Looking back on her early life, Baba once said, “Kofu was where life happened. I was happiest when I lived there. I could do what I wanted, and I felt fulfilled.”
In 1944, as the Pacific War intensified, Baba moved to Minobu, where her husband’s family home was located. On the day of the Kofu air raid in July the following year, her daughter remembered seeing her mother cry as she watched the city burn in the distance.
After settling in Minobu, Baba devoted herself to housework, childcare, and fieldwork. Her daughter recalled that life in the countryside was difficult, yet she never heard her mother complain.
Once her children became independent, Baba immersed herself in her hobbies. She joined the town’s cultural association and participated in its tanka poetry club, continuing her involvement until the age of ninety. Beginning in the mid‑1970s, she also created chigiri‑e (torn‑paper collage) artworks, teaching herself the craft. She remained passionate about making art until around the age of one hundred.
Baba loved reading throughout her life, especially historical novels and Agatha Christie’s mysteries. “I wonder how many times I read Miyamoto Musashi,” she said. “It is an old story, but it taught me the joy of living.”
Baba remained independent well into her centenarian years, continuing to bathe and dress herself until the age of 103. In 2016, she moved to a special nursing home for the elderly in Minobu, where she spent her later years at a gentle pace. By 2018, her family included five children, nine grandchildren, and seventeen great‑grandchildren.
Yoshi Baba passed away in Minobu, Yamanashi Prefecture, on 4 January 2022, at the age of 114 years and 215 days.
RECOGNITION
In September 2018, Baba was recognized as the oldest living person in Yamanashi Prefecture.
ATTRIBUTION
GALLERY
YoshiBaba
At age 111. source: Gerontology Wiki
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