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At 115 years old, this US-born Spanish woman is the oldest person in the world. Photo/Andina
MADRID – A citizen Spanish 115 year old American-born survivor of the attack Covid-19 two years ago became the oldest person in the world. It happened after the death of French nun Lucile Randon at the age of 118.
Maria Branyas became the oldest human to recover from the deadly virus in May 2020.
And now the daughter of a Spanish journalist, who was born in San Francisco but moved with her family to Catalonia when she was a child, has taken on a new title after Randon’s death in a retirement home in the southern French port city of Toulon.
Nursing home director David Tavella announced Tuesday that Randon died in his sleep.
Maria, who has lived in sheltered housing in the Catalan city of Olot since she was 92, played the piano, read the newspaper and exercised every morning until she was 105.
Read: The Oldest Man in the World, 118 Years Old, Dies in His Sleep
He became the oldest person in Spain in December 2019.
Maria was born on March 4, 1907 into a Catalan family who had emigrated to San Francisco the year before.
They made the decision to return to Spain in 1915 during the First World War after Maria’s father, Josep, fell ill.
He eventually died of tuberculosis on the ship on which they crossed the Atlantic, with his now centenarian daughter injuring herself in a fall during the same voyage and later discovering that she had lost her hearing in one ear.
