Maria Branyas (Redirected from Maria Branyas Morera)

Maria Branyas Morera
María Branyas Morera
Maria Branyas Morera on her 117th birthday
Born
Maria Branyas Morera

(1907-03-04)4 March 1907
(age 117 years, 10 days)
NationalitySpanish
Known for
Spouse
Joan Moret
(m. 1931; died 1976)
Children3 (1 deceased)

Maria Branyas Morera (Catalan: [məˈɾiə ˈβɾaɲəs]; born 4 March 1907) is an American-born Spanish Catalan supercentenarian who, at the age of 117 years, 10 days, has been the world's oldest verified living person since the death of Lucile Randon (1904–2023) on 17 January 2023.

Personal life

Maria Branyas (sitting on a wooden fence) with her family in 1911, New Orleans

Branyas was born on 4 March 1907 in San Francisco, California to Josep Branyas Julià (1877–1915) and Teresa Morera Laque (1880–1968). Morera was part of an expatriate Spanish family (of Catalan origin) who had moved there in 1906, the year before she was born. 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.

On 16 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 Obra Sindical 18 de Julio [es]. 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 now uses a voice-to-text platform to communicate due to hearing loss. She has 11 grandchildren, and she outlived her eldest son, August (1932–2019), who died in a tractor accident aged 86.

Health and longevity

Branyas became a supercentenarian in 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 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. Since the death of Fusa Tatsumi of Japan on 12 December 2023, Branyas is the last surviving validated person born in 1907.

She has recently become the subject of scientific research as a result of her maintaining good health and memory despite her advanced age.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Branyas remained the oldest person to recover from COVID-19 until January 2021, when Lucile Randon, who was three years Branyas' senior, tested positive days before her 117th birthday.

This page was last updated at 2024-03-14 12:59 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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