Maria Branyas Morera, the oldest person in the world, died at the age of 117

“She had a serene life, without the stress of work,” her daughter Rose told El País.

In her later years, Ms. Morera enjoyed more than a dozen grandchildren. She weathered the onslaught of Covid, as well as the general anxiety and isolation of the pandemic — a feat she found easier, she said at the time, because she remembered a world without the current conveniences most people had become accustomed to.

“We have lost a charming woman who taught us the value of life and the wisdom of years” Salvador Illasaid the president of the Catalan regional government in a post on the X portal.

Ms. Morera became the oldest living person in January 2023, following the death of Lucile Randon, a French nun known as Sister André. The next oldest living person after Ms. Morera is Tomiko Itooka of Japan, who is 116, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which tracks supercentenarians around the world.

Mrs. Morera is survived by two daughters, who are 91 and 82 years elderly, and numerous grandchildren.

Reaching 117 comes with its own costs. Ms. Morera suffered from hearing and vision loss and had difficulty moving in recent years. Yet she had no signs of cancer, heart disease or other terminal illnesses. Nor had she ever shown signs of dementia.

Born before the telephone, Ms. Morera embraced the digital revolution, establishing herself on social media as “Super Catalan Grandma,” or “Super Catalan Grandma.” From there, she posted brief life tips, observations, and jokes to her thousands of followers.