On Tuesday, August 20th, Maria Branyas, the world’s oldest person and a native of the United States, passed away peacefully at the age of 117 in a nursing home in Spain.
Her family announced her passing through a social media platform X, saying, “Maria Branyas has left us. She departed this world as she wished: peacefully in her sleep without any pain.” Guinness World Records (GWR) also confirmed her death, at the age of 117 years and 168 days.
On Monday, Branyas had hinted on the X platform that her time was near. She said, “I feel very weak. The time is coming. Don’t cry, I don’t like tears… You all know me, wherever I go, I will be very happy.”
“I am old, very old, but not foolish,” her X account was managed by her daughter.
According to Guinness World Records, after the passing of French nun Sister André at the age of 118, Branyas became the world’s oldest person in January 2023, and she turned 117 years old on March 4th this year.
She was born in 1907 in California, San Francisco, one year after her parents emigrated from Spain to the United States. At the age of seven, her family moved back to Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia. It was during the time of World War I.
She spent the rest of her life there, experiencing the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939, the First and Second World Wars, as well as two major pandemics a century apart – the Spanish Flu of 1918 and the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic of 2020-2021. She tested positive for the virus in May 2020 and became the oldest known survivor afterwards.
In 1931, she married Joan Moret, a doctor from Catalonia, and they had three children. According to the Guinness World Records website, her husband passed away in 1976. She outlived her son August, who died at the age of 86 in a tractor accident.
Branyas told GWR that the secrets to her longevity were “living a disciplined life, maintaining a peaceful mindset, having good relationships with family and friends, being close to nature, emotional stability, having no worries, no regrets, staying optimistic, and avoiding negative people.”
“I believe aside from luck, good genes are also crucial for longevity,” she further added.
When she reached 117, she became the 12th oldest person in history. The oldest recorded person ever is Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment. According to GWR, she was born on February 21, 1875, and lived for 122 years and 164 days.
According to the Gerontology Research Group, a nonprofit scientific organization that verifies the ages of supercentenarians (individuals aged 110 and older), the current oldest living person is a 116-year-old Japanese woman named Tomiko Itooka.
(References: Reuters and CNN reports)