Eva "Evita" Peron: "Don't Cry For Me Argentina"

-
When Eva (nee Duarte) Peron, affectionately known as “Evita” to her adoring public, died at the age of 33 on July 26, 1952, her funeral was as grand as the life (albeit short) she had lived. Her body was medically embalmed --a rare and costly practice--and placed in a specially constructed Bronze casket with a glass cover for public viewing. And what a viewing it was! Eva’s body remained on display for 13 days during which time 3 million Argentines, after waiting in line for hours, filed past her casket to pay their final respects. In the meantime, construction was to begin on the mausoleum which would house her remains. However, it would take more than 20 years before that would happen. Ousted by a coup, President Juan Peron went into hiding as did Eva’s body, because of the strong anti-Peron sentiment in the country. On October 22, 1976, Eva Peron’s body was at last entombed in the family mausoleum in La Recoleta Cemetery. A plaque at the site is inscribed in Spanish with the words: Don’t Cry For Me. Located in Buenos Aires, La Recoleta is the final resting place of many of Argentina’s elite.
  A friend who visited the cemetery graciously provided this photo. I’ve yet to get there, though I did write both a college paper and an article entitled The Death and Enduring Legacy of Eva Peron which appeared in the January 2001 edition of American Funeral Director Magazine.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Mother's Grief

-
Image
  Near the edge of Green -Wood Cemetery, a sculpture of a beautiful woman –Rose Guarino--reclining across stone steps stops visitors in their tracks. Open-eyed, with lips parted and long hair flowing, she is dressed in a flowing gown, and wearing sandals. She clutches a bouquet in her hands. For generations, Brooklyn locals have believed that the monument commemorates a mafia bride gunned down on her wedding day in a revenge killing. The true story behind the statue does involve a murder and is just as tragic.  In the summer of 1909, Dominica Merello and her daughter, Rose Guarino, were dining with family members on the lawn of their NJ summer home when Pietro Silverio, an irate domestic employee, rushed the women, gun in hand, to exact revenge for losing his job. As the women attempted to flee, Silverio gave chase and shot Guarino in the back.   She died three days later. Guarino's body was held for two years in the cemetery's receiving vault while the monument w...
Read more

Spyros Skouras: A Greek Immigrant's Story of Success

-
Image
One summer day, while wandering the grounds of the Gate of Heaven cemetery, I came across an alabaster statue of Mary cradling Jesus in an open grassy field. The statue was striking, but the Greek surname on the gravestone, which is not often seen in Catholic cemeteries, caught my attention. There was also something faintly familiar about the name. I soon realized that I had stumbled upon the grave of Spyros Skouras, a movie executive and former president of 20th Century Fox Studios. I wondered how many others had passed by, unaware of who he was and what he had accomplished. Born to humble beginnings in Ilia, a small village in Greece, Skouras boarded a boat to America with two of his brothers in search of the American dream. He truly found it. The man who once sold popcorn in American movie theaters rose to become the president of 20th Century Fox. During his 20-year tenure—from 1942 to 1962, the longest in the company's history—he oversaw the production of major films such as Th...
Read more

William Robertson and Mary "Mai" Rogers Coe

-
Image
Wealthy industrialists William Robertson and Mary "Mai" Rogers Coe,  are entombed within a stately mausoleum in a leafy alcove toward the eastern end of Memorial Cemetery of St. John's Church on Long Island's north shore.  Their former Oyster Bay homestead has served as a state park—Planting Fields Arboretum—since 1949, are entombed within a stately mausoleum in a leafy alcove toward the eastern end of the cemetery.
Read more