A 115-year-old woman is now holding the title of the oldest person in the world following the death of Lucile Randon,118, who died in her sleep this week. The Spaniard, born in the U.S., also holds the record for the oldest person to recover from Covid in May 2020.
Keep reading for the details.
The American-born Spaniard is currently the world's oldest person. Born on March 4, 1907, in San Francisco, she moved to Catalonia with her family when she was little.
French nun Lucile Randon held the previous record and passed away at 118 in a nursing home in Toulon. She went by the name Sister Andre after joining a Catholic charitable order in 1944 and also survived Covid last year, taking Branyas' record from her.
Besides her new record, Branyas pulled an impressive feat in 2020 when she became the oldest person ever to recover from the deadly virus.
Branyas has a very bright memory for someone her age; back in October 2019, she described her experience watching TV for the first time in an interview with the Catalan daily La Vanguardia. It was on December 15, 1960, and the wedding was between King Baudouin of Belgium and Spanish aristocrat Fabiola de Mora y Aragon.
The woman revealed her caretakers at her retirement had put her on a strict diet but they allowed her to indulge in a little bit of cake on her birthday.
Her retirement home director, Monserrat Valdayo, told the interviewers that she was in good health for her age and only became frightened after losing most of her hearing and sight.
Valdayo also revealed she has slight difficulties when it comes to walking out of her room, but she can still walk a little bit as soon as she gets together.
Branyas also relieved her bad memories from the Spanish Civil War that lasted between 1936-1939.
She made a very deep observation on how everything in the world has changed and how money now rules everything.
"People live differently now to how they used to. Money dominates everything and with money you can get almost everything."
The world record holder who has lived in sheltered housing in Olot since age 92, played the piano, check out newspapers, and exercised every morning until she clocked 105.
She rose to become the oldest person in Spain in December 2019.
Her Catalan family emigrated to San Francisco a year before she was born in 1906, but decided to return to Spain in 1915 during the First World War and lost her father to tuberculosis on the ship crossing the Atlantic.
Branyas married a Catalan doctor Joan Moret in 1931 and had three children. He died at 72, leaving behind Branyas, 11 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren.
The record holder has lost a few people, too, including her parents, three siblings, and one of her three children.
