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Maria Branyas, recognised as the world’s oldest person, has died at the age of 117. The Catalan-born passed away on Monday after spending the last two decades of her life in the Santa Maria del Tura nursing home in Olot, a town in northern Catalonia.
Born in San Francisco on March 4, 1907, Branyas had a life that spanned more than a century, witnessing some of the most significant events in modern history. Just last month, she became the 8th longest-lived person in history, as recorded by the Gerontology Research Group (GRG), which monitors the Guinness World Records (GWR) list for the oldest people.
Branyas assumed the title of the world’s oldest person on January 17, 2023, following the death of French nun Lucile Randon, who passed away at the age of 118.
Maria Branyas was born to a Catalan family in San Francisco, California. At the age of seven, during the height of World War I in 1914, her mother decided to return to Catalonia with the family. Branyas vividly recalled the perilous journey across the Atlantic in an interview in 2019.
“We came here on a boat. Because of the war, Germany was still attacking the North, and you couldn’t go through the northern seas, but we could go further down, through the Azores and Cuba,” she recounted. “In 1914 I was already a bit aware [of what was happening],” she added, speaking in a slow but firm tone.
Branyas lived through both World Wars and the Spanish Civil War, memories of which remained sharp even in her later years. Reflecting on those tumultuous times, she remarked, “They were very harmful in Europe, but they also brought some advances.”
She also shared her painful recollections of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), saying, “I have very bad memories of it, some people rose up and started to commit atrocities when no one was talking about it.”
In May 2020, at the age of 113, Branyas became the oldest known person to survive COVID-19, further cementing her legacy as a symbol of resilience.
In recognition of her extraordinary life, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors officially commended Maria Branyas in 2023 when she was 116 years and 249 days old. The resolution praised her as an “active and engaged resident” of her nursing home in Olot, where she continued to participate in exercises until her mobility deteriorated.
The Board of Supervisors also declared November 7, 2023, as ‘Maria Branyas Day’ in San Francisco and the local county. The resolution, read by Board Speaker Aaron Peskin, highlighted Branyas’s contributions to humanity, stating that she “has much to teach at this critical moment in our planet’s history on how to live with integrity, love, humanity, and hope.”
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