They are the last bastion of an old family model that is in danger of extinction. They did not delay motherhood to study, develop professionally or perfect themselves by completing a master’s degree.
Margarita López Concepción, 80, and María Luz Salazar González, 91, married young, at 19, like most of their family members, who reach the fourth generation. Both are neighbors of Doce de Octubre Street, in the Cruz de la Cebolla neighborhood, in La Orotava, and are great-great-grandmothers.
They have the same number of children and of the same sex – three men and one woman – and seven grandchildren each. The only thing they differ in is the number of great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. María Luz has 15 great-grandchildren “one of them is taller than me”, she emphasizes, four great-great-grandchildren and one on the way and all of different ages. Her neighbor and friend has four great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren who are small.
But the highlight of both is that they are not the image of those people older than the years and the fatigue of a lifetime is reflected in their faces but quite the opposite. They have an enviable vitality, they maintain their flirtatiousness, they dress up for the photo, they get excited when telling their stories, and they interact with the little ones in the house, letting them do what they would not allow their own sons and daughters. And most importantly, they enjoy it.
María Luz always liked children. “When the great-grandchildren come, they open the balcony door for me, they tell me to be careful not to fall, they roll around in the armchairs and I leave them,” she says.
Margarita “has never stopped raising children” and acknowledges that she allows her grandchildren and great-grandchildren more things than she allowed her own children.
In addition, they get involved in the social life of their street, Twelve de October, one of the few in which their neighbors organize a party on Hispanic Day, in coincidence with its name, they share a meal and enroban the cross, made by Jesús, “a very dear and cheerful neighbor who organized many things”. They have been doing it for more than twenty years. It’s a good neighborhood, they love it. The street, they emphasize, is part of their family.
María Luz is the oldest neighbor. She got married and manufactured on Miguel Morales street, where she was born, very close to there. “Two streets over,” she points out. But she has been living there for 50 years.
Margarita has been here since 1961. She is also from La Orotava but from the El Ramal area.
They were the first houses that were on that road, “as it was being built, the street was being formed, which has nothing to do with what it is now,” he says.
“Behind that farm we had the farm, even the pine tree, and all of that was full of grapes and we rolled them up and tied them up, my daughter-in-law and I,” says María Luz.
According to her, having always worked on the farm is the secret of staying so well and enjoying good health. Last year when she returned from the hospital, where she was admitted for a heart condition, the doctor asked her “for the prescription because to reach her age and like her.” She asked him what he ate and she replied “vegetable stew, a lot of vegetables, that’s what I like the most, especially chayota, bubango and carrot. And work a lot on the farm, because I always worked and I liked it”.
She lived in La Palma for four years because her husband went to work in the canals and so that he would not be alone “because he had no one to cook his food and wash his clothes,” she accompanied him. They lived in Barlovento and there she also dedicated herself to farm work.
Margarita was a kind of revolutionary for the time. Her husband had been “talking to another girl” for ten years until he met her. It was love at first sight, he left his girlfriend and a year later they got married, with all that that meant at that time. “But I didn’t get married pregnant, far from it,” she jokes.
Margarita dedicated herself to sewing, but always at home to be able to make it compatible with the family.
Regarding whether it is better to be young mothers like they were, she replies: “I can’t say that it has gone badly for me, but I would have liked to live more youthfully.”
The two agree that it is a pride to have reached their age and in those conditions. A gift, just like the great family that both have formed.
