Yone Minagawa
Yone Minagawa was a widow raising 5 children on her own. To get by she sold flowers and vegetables at a coal mine. She lived alone in an apartment in Nishijin Sawara Ward, Fukuoka. She later moved to a retirement home in Akaike, Fukuoka in 2005. This was also when she became the oldest person in Japan following the passing of Ura Koyama. At 114 she was still very passionate; she was said to participate in club activities in a wheelchair and even “danced” along to the music. She also enjoyed playing the shamisen.
She became the oldest living person in Japan surpassing Ura Koyama (114 years old). In 2007 she became the world’s second-oldest woman and in the same year, Minagawa became the oldest living person in the world, after the passing of Emma Tillman. She was 114 years old and 25 days at the time and she was 114 years, 221 days when she died later that year.