Maria Branyas Morera (117è Aniversari)

Maria Branyas Morera (; born 4 March 1907) is an American-born Spanish supercentenarian who, at the age of , has been the world's oldest verified living person since the death of Lucile Randon on 17 January 2023.

Personal life

Branyas was born on 4 March 1907 in San Francisco, United States, to an expatriate Spanish family (of Catalan origin) that had moved there in 1906. She and her family later moved to Texas, then subsequently to New Orleans. While in New Orleans her father Josep 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 safe passage. On the voyage, Branyas lost the ability to hear in one 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.

In July 1931, Branyas married a traumatologist named Joan Moret with whom she had three children. 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 . He was also the director of the Josep Trueta Hospital in Girona from 1972 to 1974. Branyas worked as a nurse, and 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 now uses a voice-to-text platform to communicate due to hearing loss. She has 11 grandchildren, and she outlived her eldest son, August, who died in a tractor accident at the age of 86.

Health and longevity

Branyas became a centenarian in 2007, and a supercentenarian by 2017, which is achieved by about one in 1,000 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 ('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.

See also

* List of American supercentenarians
* List of European supercentenarians
* List of Spanish supercentenarians
* List of the verified oldest people
* Oldest people

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Branyas, Maria
1907 births
American emigrants to Spain
American people of Catalan descent
American supercentenarians
Spanish supercentenarians
Living people
People from Olot
People from San Francisco
Spanish centenarians
Spanish people of Catalan descent
Women supercentenarians