MEXICO CITY -- The oldest woman in Latin America, Leandra Becerra, passed away Thursday night at the age of 127 in Zapopan, a town in Mexico's western state of Jalisco, family members said Friday.
Becerra's relatives held a wake for her at her home in the town's Miramar district, and planned to have her cremated Saturday.
Her family said Becerra, who liked eating chocolates and cookies, had said jokingly that the secret of her longevity was not having a husband, eating well and getting plenty of sleep.
Known as the last of the revolutionary-era "adelitas," women who followed their men into battle, Becerra was born in 1887 in northeastern Tamaulipas state.
Though never married, Becerra had five children and some 200 descendants scattered across the states of Jalisco, Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, and in the United States.
Becerra couldn't be registered in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-living woman for she lost all her official documentation.
