The world’s oldest-known person, Spain’s Maria Branyas Morera, has died at the age of 117, her family confirmed Tuesday.
“Maria Branyas has left us. She died as she wished: in her sleep, peacefully and without pain,” her family wrote in Catalan on her account on X on Tuesday. “We will always remember her for her advice and her kindness.”
Branyas was born in the U.S. in 1907 and lived through two pandemics, two world wars, an earthquake and a major fire — and retained many memories from her long and eventful life as she grew older.
Speaking to Spanish news outlet ABC in November last year, scientist Manel Esteller said Branyas had “a completely lucid head” despite her age.
“She remembers with impressive clarity events from when she was only four years old, and she does not present any cardiovascular disease, common in elderly people,” he added.
Esteller was studying Banyas to determine her biological age, believing that she was “much younger physically” than her chronological age.
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Her family shared Tuesday that the matriarch sensed her death was near, telling them days before she passed: “I don’t know when, but very soon this long journey will come to an end.”
“Death will find me worn down from having lived so much, but I want to meet it with a smile, feeling free and satisfied.”
Branyas was born in San Francisco on March 4, 1907. After living for some years in New Orleans, where her father founded a magazine, her family returned to Spain when she was young. Branyas said that she had memories of crossing the Atlantic Ocean during World War I.
At age 113, Branyas tested positive for COVID-19 during the global pandemic, but avoided developing severe symptoms that claimed tens of thousands of older Spaniards.
Branyas clearly had a sense of humour. Her X account, called “Super Catalan Grandma,” includes in the description: “I am old, very old, but not an idiot.”
On X, she would post life advice to others asking what her secret was, attributing her longevity to “order, tranquillity, good connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets, lots of positivity, and staying away from toxic people.”
Esteller said her family, too, could offer some clues.
“It is clear that there is a genetic component because there are several members of her family who are over 90 years old,” he said.
The Gerontology Research Group, which tracks the details of people thought to be 110 or older, listed Branyas as the oldest-known person in the world after the death of French nun Lucile Randon last year.
The next oldest person listed by the group is now Japan’s Tomiko Itooka, who is 116 years old.
— With a file from The Associated Press
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