MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- A Spanish woman -- who at age 66 gave birth to twins -- has died less than three years later, a local official and a family member told CNN Thursday.
Maria del Carmen Bousada gave birth in December 2006 in Barcelona, after receiving in vitro fertilization treatment in California. At the time of the birth, she was believed to have been the world's oldest new mother.
Bousada died Saturday at her home in the southern Spanish town of El Puerto de Santa Maria, said the family member, who identified herself as the wife of Jose Luis Bousada, whom she said was a nephew of the deceased.
"She has died. I was at the wake in Cadiz," said the woman, who declined on the phone to give her name. CNN reached her at the phone book-listed residence of Jose Luis Bousada in Cadiz, the nearby city where Bousada spent most of her life.
The death was widely reported in Spain.
The local official told CNN that Bousada was cremated at the Greater Cadiz Bay cemetery Sunday morning but that the cemetery did not list that on its Web site, which is customary, because the family asked to keep it secret.
The local official, who spoke on condition of not being identified, said he talked Thursday with the cemetery manager, who confirmed the cremation.
She would have been 69 at the time of death.
The woman's twin boys, named Pau and Christian, will be three-years old in December. They are being cared for by a nephew of the deceased, a family member said.
Spanish news reports said Bousada had been diagnosed with a tumor around the time of the birth, which occurred about a week before her 67th birthday.
British tabloid News of the World said Bousada lied to a California fertility clinic about her age and said she was 55, just in case they refused to treat her.
In an interview last year, Bousada told the paper that -- since her mother lived to be 101 -- she figured she would live long enough to raise the children.
A retired department store employee who was not married, she reportedly lived most of her life with her mother in Cadiz, and decided to have children after her mother died in 2005, selling her home to raise cash for the fertility treatment.
"God didn't let her enjoy her children very much. He should have given her more time," said Pilar Pinto, who runs a fresh produce business in El Puerto de Santa Maria.
"The kids are with a nephew of Bousada, and his wife. They are being well taken care of, and are in great shape. I see them here often in town," added Pinto, whose shop is downstairs from the home of one of Bousada's brothers.
Pinto said it is the brother's son, a nephew of the deceased, who is taking care of the children.
Manuela Reyes, who lived near Bousada's home in the same town, told CNN affiliate Cuatro, "This woman lived there, ever since those apartments were built. You didn't see her much. She came in and out of her house with her little kids, but not much else."
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