GRAND ISLAND, New York: The world’s oldest man, a 112-year-old self-taught musician, coal miner and gin rummy aficionado from western New York, has died. He was 112.
Salustiano Sanchez-Blazquez died Friday at a nursing home in Grand Island, according to Robert Young, senior gerontology consultant with Guinness World Records.
Sanchez-Blazquez became the world’s oldest man when Jiroemon Kimura died June 12 at age 116.
Born June 8, 1901, in the village of El Tejado de Bejar, Spain, he was known for his talent on the dulzaina, a double-reed wind instrument that he taught himself and played at weddings and village celebrations. At 17, he moved with his older brother Pedro and a group of friends to Cuba, where they worked in the cane fields.
In 1920, he came to the United States through Ellis Island and worked in the coal mines of Lynch, Kentucky. Ultimately, he moved to the Niagara Falls area of New York, where he worked in construction and in the industrial furnaces. He married his wife, Pearl, in 1934.
A spokeswoman for Sanchez-Blazquez’s family did not immediately return a phone message Saturday.
In a statement provided by Guinness World Records earlier this summer, Sanchez-Blazquez — whose nickname was “Shorty” — said he was humbled by the attention, saying he didn’t feel he accomplished anything special just because he has lived longer than most.
World’s oldest man dies in US aged 112
