Rosa Julia Peña Hechavarría, the oldest known living person in Cuba, is celebrating her 112th birthday today in Las Tunas City.

Peña Hechavarría was born in Santa María region (now the municipality of Puerto Padre), Las Tunas province, Cuba, on 23 October 1914 to parents Feliberto Peña Jomarron and Elvira Hechavarría Agüero. She spent her childhood helping her parents and her eight siblings in the rural neighborhood where they lived, along with her aunts, uncles, and cousins.

In her teens, she used to sell chicken eggs for a local merchant. With the money she earned, she would buy a length of fabric from the same man, and her older sister would sew dresses for her. She would also buy buttons, needles, and thread, and proudly wear her new dress to the town dances. In one of those parties, she met her future husband, Rubén Ricardo Cartaya, who became her one true love.

In 1933, Rosa Julia and her boyfriend Rubén decided to elope during one of the town’s festivals. Rubén already owned a small house in the village of Santa María, it was there where they would begin their new life together. Rosa Julia, always hardworking, took charge of a shop, a busy business that sold everything needed for rural life: from clothing and household items to tools like hammers and machetes. She married Rubén Ricardo in November 1950, and they had two children—Roberto (born 1943) and Griselda (born 1949).

LongeviQuest extends warm congratulations to Rosa Julia Peña Hechavarría on her 112th birthday.