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Cecile Klein
Cecile Klein
Cecile Klein on her 114th birthday in 2021.
Birth: 15 June 1907
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Death: 13 January 2022
Cote Saint-Luc, Quebec, Canada
Age: 114 years, 212 days
Country: CanadaCAN
Validated

Cecile Edith Klein (née Efros; 15 June 1907 – 13 January 2022) was a Canadian supercentenarian whose age is validated by the Gerontology Research Group (GRG). At the time of her death, she was the oldest validated living person in Canada.

Biography

Cecile Klein was born as Cecile Edith Efros in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on 15 June 1907 to Polish-born Jewish parents Louis Efros (1881–1950) and Rebecca Pearson Efros (1887–1965). In 1923, Klein began attending secretarial school and taught herself typing. Klein began working for a lawyer's office and later for an early form of HR at RCA Victor. During the Great Depression, Klein managed to find her uncles a position at RCA Victor.

Klein later moved to Westmount, Quebec where she married Israeli-born Erwin Klein (1905–1999) on 5 June 1932. The couple had three children: Harriet, Arnold, and Louise. Klein had a grandmother who lived to 103, still alive at the time she married Erwin, alongside Klein's centenarian great-aunt.

Klein's husband Erwin had his Pharmacy bought out by Bayer in 1949. Erwin died in 1999 at the age of 94 following 67 years of marriage. Klein lived in their duplex in Westmount until she suffered a fall in 2017 and subsequently moved into an assisted living facility in Côte Saint-Luc.

Klein still traveled in her centenarian years. At the ages of 102 and 103, Klein went on two cruises, one to Alaska and one in Mexico.

After suffering a fall which injured her pelvis at the age of 110, Klein became less active and could no longer walk.

At the age of 111, Klein could still read the newspaper without glasses.

Klein reportedly received her first dose of the Covid-19 Vaccine in December 2020, making her the one of the oldest known people to receive the vaccine, and the oldest person to do so in 2020.

Following the death of Phyllis Ridgway on 4 June 2021, Klein became the oldest validated living person in Canada.

In August 2021, Klein attended a concert in Cote Saint-Luc, Quebec.

Klein died in Cote Saint-Luc, Quebec, Canada on 13 January 2022 at the age of 114 years, 212 days. Following her death, Shige Mineshiba became the oldest known living person in Canada, and Yvonne Delorme-Martel became the oldest known living Canadian-born person. Klein was also the last known surviving Canadian person born before 1909.

Klein is currently the fourth-oldest validated Canadian person ever, after Marie-Louise Meilleur, Mary Ann Rhodes, and Julie Winnefred Bertrand.

Gallery

References


Canada's Oldest Living Person Titleholders (VE)

Flore BelandEmma BinghamHerman Smith-JohannsenAgnes MunceNellie ThompsonAlice Sjoquist • Lillian RossMarie-Louise Meilleur • Marie-Louise Meunier • Maria Mallozzi • Zelda McCague • Fanny Martland • Evangeline SaulnierAnne Samson • Julie Winnefred Bertrand • Jennie Fitzgerald • Margaret Fitzgerald • Pearl LutzkoCora Hansen • Yvonne Lamoureux • Merle Barwis • Colombe Benoit-Leclerc • Orma Slack • Marguerite Wabano • Lilian Cornell • Ellen Gibb • Sarah Patenaude-Bruyere • Phyllis Ridgway • Cecile Klein • Shige Mineshiba • Mabel MahHelen Doan

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