Although the Japanese region of Okinawa is famous for being the area in the world where people live the longest, the oldest person on the planet does not reside there, but in Olot (Catalonia). At 115 years old, Catalan Maria Branyas has become the oldest person on the planet according to the Gerontology Research Group (GRG), after Sister André, a French nun who until yesterday held the title, died yesterday. Unfortunately Lucile Randon, that was Sister André's name, died yesterday at the age of 118.
Maria Branyas currently lives in the Santa Maria del Tura residence, in Olot, and two years ago, at 113, she managed to overcome covid.
Daughter of an expatriate journalist, Branyas was born on March 4, 1907 in San Francisco, in the United States, into a Catalan family that had moved to North America the previous year. When she was 7 years old, her parents returned to Catalonia, where she spent the First World War, the Spanish Civil War - the only one whose harsh memories still make her emotional - and later the Second World War.
On the occasion of his 112th birthday, La Vanguardia traveled to the residence where he has lived for years to pay him a visit. The journalist David Dusster stated that his memory is good and his ability to list many memories, from the trip back to Europe from the United States, or the wars that marked the last century, or even details of television programs, such as Fabiola's wedding to King Baudouin of Belgium: “That was the first time I saw TV,” this woman who saw the light before the introduction of the telephone and continues to witness the digital revolution assured the journalist.
Witness and active member, because Branyas even has a Twitter account under the name Super Àvia Catalana (@MariaBranyas112) and where a phrase states: "Soc vella, molt vella, però no idiot (I am old, very old, but not an idiot ).
Maria Branyas was the daughter of a journalist from Pamplona who directed the North American magazine Mercurio and that is why she was born in California. In 1931 she married the Llagostera doctor Joan Moret. Branyas has had several residences throughout her life, but most of them linked to Girona, where she has lived in Banyoles, Girona city and Calonge. Now for more than 20 years, she has lived in this residence in Olot.
At the beginning of this month, just on Three Kings Day, Maria Branyas's Twitter account announced the list of the oldest people in the world, in which she was number two. A list that must be updated today.
