José Hernández Martín accumulates and shares one hundred years of life and experiences between the 20th and 21st centuries, always marked by continuous work in the fields and the daily fight to keep a family of four brothers afloat who were left too soon without a father or mother. A true example of popular wisdom, cunning, effort and strength that makes his tanker neighbors proud.
In 1923, Juan de la Cierva made the first gyroplane flight, the Ottoman Empire dissolved and Turkey emerged, the first issue of Time magazine appeared in New York, Lenin gave up power in the USSR, Primo de Rivera gave a coup in Spain, the 24 hours of Le Mans are run for the first time, the engineer Gustave Eiffel dies in Paris and the opera singer María Callas and José Hernández Martín are born, a resident of El Tanque who has just turned 100 years old. A century with a civil war, a world war and a 40-year dictatorship in Spain that, for this tanker, has always been between the tasks of agriculture and caring for the family. Don José wears a hat and still moves lightly, with the help of two sticks, and is able to answer an interview that is part of a tribute recently paid to him by the town hall of his town. His head sometimes doesn’t let him remember everything, but he has simple stories that he still shares with whoever wants to listen.
“One hundred years can already be said,” he replies as if turning a century was anything. He remembers that at home they had “three cows and a horse” and that his life was “always working” in the fields. He lost his mother first and, shortly after, his father, leaving four brothers orphaned and alone, of whom “the youngest was just a year or a year and a half old.” That forced them to work even harder “in agriculture to be able to support the family and also with the help of some who helped us a little. We do not go hungry, but sorrows yes »remember this centennial man.
When questioned about the secret of his longevity, he is sarcastic and humorous: «The luck to get here? Well It will be the wine, for one to take shelter, but I worked a lot and spent a lot of pain with the family and with everything ».
Love came suddenlyhen one day he saw a neighbor come along with what would later be his wife, already deceased. «She told me: find yourself a woman, a girl, and I told her, if the girls don’t love me… And she goes and tells me: the girls do love you, what happens is that you don’t love them to them”. The three continued for a walk until José plucked up his courage and jumped into the pool. He was extremely direct, he fell in love just enough and told what would be his wife: «What is happening? We make a deal? Do we both get married? That’s how it was, we hooked up and got married, and then I went to the barracks, already married.
Don José smiles and reflects on the past, the present and the future: «Today I am here, because tomorrow I don’t know what it will be like, because life has changed a lot.. She used to live in one way and now in another ». And he recounts his day to day, always with the help of his family: «I get up, take a bath or they help me take a bath, they put my clothes on, they give me breakfast and I stay here. I take my sticks and take a walk, not very long. That’s all the work now.” At 100 years old, he values above all family harmony and the tranquility of loving and feeling loved: “I get along well with all my children and all my grandchildren, who are the best things I have in this life for me.”
The tanker mayor, Esther Morales, also visited José Hernández Martín at his home andl last March 19 to deliver a present and recognized that “there is so much to learn from people like him, from his wisdom and strength, because they are an example of life. It is 100 birthdays and so many experiences, experiences, memories that are already the history of our municipality.
