(NEW YORK) — A woman classified by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest person died Aug. 19 at the age of 117, her family confirmed The New York Times.
According to the Guinness Book of Records, Maria Branyas Morera died in Spain in the Residència Santa María del Tura nursing home in Olot, Catalonia, where she had lived since 2000.
Guinness World Records awarded the title of “oldest living woman” to Branyas Morera when Lucile Randon, a nun also known as Sister André, died in 2023 at the age of 118.
Branyas Morera was born in San Francisco on March 4, 1907, according to Guinness World Records, but moved with her family to Catalonia and later made Barcelona her home. She married doctor Joan Moret in 1931, who preceded her in death in 1976. They had three children, two daughters and a son.
“Maria Branyas has left us. She died as she wanted: in her sleep, peacefully and without pain. A few days ago she told us: ‘One day I will leave here. I will no longer drink coffee, eat yogurt or caress the fairy… I will also leave my memories and my thoughts,'” her family wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Catalan regional president Salvador Illa re-shared the post and expressed his condolences, adding, among other things: “We are losing a lovely woman who taught us the value of life and the wisdom of the years.”
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