Maria Branyas, an American-born Spaniard considered the world’s oldest person at 117, passed away on Tuesday, her family announced.
In a post on Ms. Branyas’s X account, her family wrote in Catalan: “Maria Branyas has left us. She has gone the way she wanted: in her sleep, peacefully, and without pain.”
The Gerontology Research Group (GRG), which verifies records of individuals aged 110 and older, recognized Ms. Branyas as the oldest living person following the death of French nun Lucile Randon last year.
Born in San Francisco on March 4, 1907, Ms. Branyas returned to Spain with her family during her childhood. Remarkably, she recovered from COVID-19 in 2020 at the age of 113, becoming the oldest known survivor of the disease until Lucile Randon’s recovery in 2021.
At the time of her death, Ms. Branyas resided in a nursing home in the Catalan town of Olot. Her X account, titled “Super Catalan Grandma,” playfully described her as “old, very old, but not an idiot.”
Tomiko Itooka from Japan is now considered the oldest living person according to the Gerontology Research Group, at the age of 116.
