Maria Branyas Morera, World’s Oldest Person, Dies At 117 (Photos)

Maria Branyas Morera, an American-born Spanish woman believed to be the oldest person in the world, has died, according to her family. She was 117.

Ms. Morera died on Aug. 19 in Olot, Spain, according to an employee at her nursing home, Residencia Santa Maria del Tura. Her family wrote in a post on her social media account that she had died peacefully, in her sleep.

“A few days ago she told us: ‘One day I will leave here. I will not try coffee again, nor eat yogurt, nor pet my dog’” her family wrote in Spanish in the post. “‘I will also leave my memories, my reflections and I will cease to exist in this body. One day I don’t know, but it’s very close, this long journey will be over.’”

Born on March 4, 1907, in San Francisco, Ms. Morera grew up in several American cities, including New Orleans, where her father, a journalist, started a Spanish-language magazine that went bankrupt, according to several news stories written about her life. Facing dire straits, the family returned to Spain when Ms. Morera was a child.

There, she lived through the country’s civil war and the brutal Franco regime. She had clear memories of the D-Day invasion at Normandy, she told the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia.

“I haven’t done anything special to get to this age,” she said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País earlier this year.

Ms. Morera went on to marry a doctor, with whom she lived in Girona, Spain, for 40 years. The couple had three children, and Ms. Morera stayed home to raise them.

“She had a quiet life, without work stress,” her daughter, Rose, told El País.

In later years, Ms. Morera enjoyed more than a dozen grandchildren. She survived a bout with Covid, as well as the general anxiety and isolation of the pandemic — a feat she found easier, she said at the time, because she remembered a world without the modern-day comforts to which most people had become accustomed.

“We lost an endearing woman, who has taught us the value of life and the wisdom of the years,” Salvador Illa, the president of the Catalan regional government, said in a post on social media.

Ms. Morera became the oldest living person in January 2023, after the death of Lucile Randon, a French nun known as Sister André. According to the Gerontology Research Group, which tracks the world’s supercentenarians, the next-oldest living person after Ms. Morera is Tomiko Itooka of Japan, who is 116 years old.

Information about Ms. Morera’s survivors was not immediately available.

Reaching 117 comes with a toll. Ms. Morera suffered hearing and vision loss, and struggled to move freely in recent years. Still, she had no indication of cancer, heart disease or other mortal illnesses. Having been born before the emergence of the telephone, Ms. Morera came to embrace the digital revolution, fashioning herself on social media as “Super Àvia Catalana,” or “Super Catalan Grandma.” From there, she posted bite-size pieces of life advice, observations and jokes to thousands of followers.

In her biography on social media, she wrote: “I’m old, very old, but not an idiot.”

Since becoming the oldest living person, she had to manage a torrent of media interest, playfully stymying the reporters who lined up outside her nursing home for interviews. The attention eventually became too much, and her family stopped allowing visitors.

Like many supercentenarians, Ms. Morera became the subject of scientific fascination. Her habits and lifestyle and genetic makeup have been studied in the hopes of understanding her longevity.

“What do you expect from life?” a doctor once asked her while retrieving blood samples for study, according to El País.

Ms. Morera, unmoved, answered simply: “Death.”

Last updated on September 13th, 2024 at 09:11 pm