The world’s oldest celebrity, Spain’s Maria Branyas Morera, who was born in the US in 1907 and lived through two pandemics and two world wars, has died aged 117, her family said.
“Maria Branyas has left us. She died the way she wanted: in her sleep, peacefully and without pain,” her family wrote on her account on X on Tuesday. “We will always remember her for her advice and her kindness.”
Branyas, who has lived in the Santa Maria del Tura nursing home in the northeastern Spanish town of Olot for the past two decades, said in a post that she felt weak. “The time is near. Don’t cry, I don’t like tears. And above all, don’t suffer for me. Wherever I go, I will be happy,” she said in the post on her account, which is managed by her family.
Guinness World Records officially recognized Branyas’ status as the world’s oldest person in January 2023 following the death, aged 118, of French nun Lucile Randon.
The oldest living person is now Japan’s Tomiko Itooka, who was born on May 23, 1908 and is 116. according to the US Gerontology Research Group.
Branyas, who lived through the 1918 flu, the first and second world wars and Spain’s civil war, contracted Covid-19 in 2020, just weeks after her 113th birthday. She was confined to her room at home, but made a full recovery.
Her youngest daughter, Rosa Moret, once attributed her mother’s longevity to genetics. “She has never gone to hospital, she has never broken any bones, she is fine, she has no pain,” Moret told Catalan regional television in 2023.
Branyas told the Guinness World Records website that she believes her longevity stems from “order, tranquility, good connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets, lots of positivity and staying away from toxic people “.
“I think longevity is also about being happy,” said Branyas, who used a voice-to-text device to express herself later in life.
She was born in San Francisco on March 4, 1907, shortly after her family moved to the US from Mexico. After also spending time in Texas and New Orleans, the family returned to their native Spain in 1915 when the first world war was underway, making travel across the Atlantic difficult.
The crossing was marked by tragedy – her father died of tuberculosis towards the end of the voyage and his coffin was thrown into the sea.
Branyas and her mother settled in Barcelona. In 1931, five years before the start of Spain’s civil war of 1936-39, she married a doctor. The couple lived together for four decades until her husband died at the age of 72. They had three children – one of whom is deceased – 11 grandchildren and many great-grandchildren.
Manel Esteller, part of a team of researchers from the University of Barcelona who studied Branyas’ DNA to determine the causes of her longevity, told the Spanish daily ABC in October 2023 that he was surprised by her good health.
“Her mind is completely clear. She remembers episodes from when she was only four years old with impressive clarity, and she has no cardiovascular disease, which is common in the elderly. The only things she has are mobility and hearing problems. It’s unbelievable,” said the genetics professor.
The oldest verified person alive was Jeanne Louise Calment, a French woman who died in 1997 at the age of 122 years and 164 days.
