Maria Branyas Morera

Maria Branyas Morera (Catalan: [məˈɾiə ˈβɾaɲəs]; 4 March 1907 – 19 August 2024) was an American-born Catalan supercentenarian who, until her death at the age of 117 years, 168 days, was the world's oldest verified living person, following the death of Lucile Randon on 17 January 2023.

Personal life

Branyas was born on 4 March 1907 in San Francisco, California. She was the first child and eldest daughter to Joseph Branyas Julià (1877–1915) and Teresa Morera Laque (1880–1968). Maria Branyas was part of an expatriate Spanish family (of Catalan origin) who had moved there in 1906, the year prior to her birth. She and her family later moved to Texas, then subsequently to New Orleans. While in New Orleans, her father Joseph worked as a journalist and founded the Spanish-language magazine Mercurio. The family decided to return to Catalonia in 1915 due to major events that impacted Branyas's father. He was both struggling financially, declared bankruptcy, and his doctor recommended a move amid his declining health. Due to the German naval presence in the Atlantic Ocean during the First World War, their boat had to travel via Cuba and the Azores to ensure a safe passage. During the voyage, Branyas lost the ability to hear in her ear after falling from the upper deck to the lower deck while playing with her brothers. Branyas's father also died of tuberculosis on the voyage, and her mother later remarried. The family settled first in Barcelona and subsequently moved northeast to the city of Banyoles.

On 16 July 1931, Branyas married Joan Moret, a traumatologist, with whom she had three children: August Moret Branyas (6 July 1932 – 14 June 2019), who died in a tractor accident aged 86, Maria Teresa Moret Branyas (born 25 October 1933) and Maria Rosa Moret Branyas (born 1944). During the Spanish Civil War, Branyas was employed as a nurse working by her husband's side at a Nationalist field hospital in Trujillo, Extremadura.] While later living in Girona, Moret became the regional leader of the healthcare organisation Obra Sindical 18 de Julio. He was also the director of the Josep Trueta Hospital, then called Residencia Sanitaria Álvarez de Castro, in Girona from 1972 to 1974. Branyas worked as a nurse and as her husband's assistant until his death in 1976.

In the 1990s, Branyas travelled to Egypt, Italy, the Netherlands, and England and took up sewing, music and reading. In 2000, at the age of 93, she moved to a nursing home in Olot, Catalonia after contracting pneumonia. Branyas was described as an active resident there, continuing to perform exercises until her mobility deteriorated. Branyas played the piano until she was 108, and used a voice-to-text platform to communicate due to hearing loss. She had 11 grandchildren.

Health and longevity

Branyas became a supercentenarian in 2017, which is achieved by about one in a thousand centenarians. In March 2020, Branyas became the then-oldest person to recover from COVID-19. In an interview with The Observer, she called for better treatment of the elderly: "This pandemic has revealed that older people are the forgotten ones of our society. They fought their whole lives, sacrificed time and their dreams for today's quality of life. They didn't deserve to leave the world in this way".

In July 2020, a research study into the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on elderly care home residents was conducted by the Spanish National Research Council and Dalt Pharmacy. The study was called Proyecto Branyas ('Project Branyas') in her honour.

Branyas officially became the oldest living person in the world on 17 January 2023, after the death of Lucile Randon of France. She also became the oldest person ever to have resided in Spain on 21 April 2023 after surpassing Ana María Vela Rubio, and the oldest emigrant ever on 14 May 2023 after surpassing Tekla Juniewicz. After the death of Fusa Tatsumi of Japan on 12 December 2023, Branyas was the last validated surviving person born in 1907. 

On 22 February 2024, following the death of American Edith Ceccarelli, she also became the last American citizen born during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

In 2023, she became the subject of scientific research as a result of maintaining good health and memory at an advanced age.

Branyas died in her sleep on 19 August 2024, at the age of 117 years and 168 days. After her death, Tomiko Itooka became the world's oldest living person