PROGRESO, YUCATAN.- A heart attack took the life of Don Eladio Casanova Gómez this Saturday, December 19th, at age 102, but what death could not take away from him was the satisfaction of having celebrated 80 years of marriage to his beloved wife, Inés Martínez Pérez.
The long-lived couple celebrated their oak weddings on December 15 (80 years together), which made them the longest-lived couple in Yucatan.
Don Eladio, who in his productive life was a bricklayer and became a contractor, died after leaving an offspring of 87 people among children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.
He married Doña Inés on December 15, 1940, when he was 22 years old and she was just 15 years old. Don Eladio worked as a bricklayer and had to request the endorsement of the “maistro” to get married.
Last Tuesday they celebrated in a simple way, with a cake, their 80th marriage anniversary, their oak wedding anniversary. And their union has been precisely as strong as an oak that has stood the test of time.
There was no great celebration, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the visits of their children and grandchildren were staggered to take care of their grandmother and grandfather.
Don Eladio mentioned that he married the love of his whole life at the age of 22, when Doña Inés was just 15 years old.
He was a bricklayer and later a contractor. To get married she had to have the endorsement of the master mason, in those years when the constructions were made of lime and sand, there was no cement, the lime was obtained after burning the stone with coal.
The blocks or steel reinforcements were not yet invented, the only construction materials were limestone and sand back then, just as the tools were made of wood, there were no masonry spoons, that’s how they worked.
The family began with the arrival of their first daughter, María Elena. Then came Lidia María, the third was José Martín and then came José Fernando, Eladio, Jaime Javier and, finally, Jorge Enrique.
In total the couple had seven children, 19 grandchildren, 55 great-grandchildren and six great-great-grandchildren.
RIP Don Eladio Casanova Gómez.
Source: Yucatan Ahora
