Jeanne Calment - Oldest Woman and One of the First Reverse Mortgages

Sometimes a sure bet, isn’t.

Jeanne had one of the first and probably best reverse mortgage of all time.

The first reverse mortgage-type loans are thought to have been done in Europe, probably France.1 In French, the system is called viager, after a word for “pension.” The most famous of these is a lesson in longevity risk. In 1965, Andre-Francois Raffray approached Jeanne Calment and offered her the equivalent of $500 per month for life in exchange for his inheriting her country house when she died. Mr. Raffray was most certainly convinced he had a good deal because at the time, he was 45 years old and Ms. Calment was 90. He died in 1996 at the age of 77 and she outlasted him by two years, dying at 122

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I recall reading about her long ago. She would be the landmark in antiaging. But, there were a few writings disputing her true age. I don’t know what the current status is.

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Reverse mortgages and “viager” aren’t the same thing. Viager was codified in 1804, long before Jeanne Calment.

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Good to know. Hers is probably the most famous story I’ve heard of in the context of Reverse Mortgages which is amazingly similar to viager.

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I have heard this account of the reverse mortgage, as well as the questions about whether she actually lived to 122. I read somewhere that she died much earlier but that her daughter somehow ‘disappeared’ her, then impersonated her in order to move into and live in her apartment until she herself died. Anyone recall reading this?

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Here’s a video about her life. Her daughter died young at the age of 34.

Now for the story of replacement to be true, the daughter would have had to replace her at 34. I think someone would notice a 34 year old passing as a 54 year old. There are debunkers who have debunked the fraud claims. The video is a short summary.

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Sequencing her DNA is what should be done for good scientific reasons. It will also put these fraud issues to bed… or… it will confirm them.
French doctors did take blood samples of Jeanne Calment which are still in storage.
For some reason the DNA analysis is not being done (We do have the greenland shark)
In the current climate the efforts by Russians to force the French to move on sequencing probably don’t bring us any closer… (Nicolay Zak even created a Facebook group [DNA test for Jeanne Calment]"

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