127-year-old said to be ‘the oldest person to ever live’

Mexico – When Leandra Becerra Lumbreras was born, the dust had still not settled on the Civil War, Teddy Roosevelt was a little-known cowboy in the Dakotas, and no one had ever heard of radio, basketball or the airplane.

Dwight Eisenhower, Amelia Earhart, Babe Ruth and Adolph Hitler were not even alive when Lumbreras arrived on Aug. 31, 1887, in a small Mexican village.

Yet through World War I, World War II, the Mexican Revolution, the Cold War and the Internet Age, Lumbreras has survived — reaching the ripe old age of 127 to become unofficially the oldest person who has ever lived, her family says.

Though her birth certificate was destroyed about 40 years ago, Lumbreras’ kin say her birth date has been documented and certified by judges following a probe conducted by the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. More