Joan Escudé i Farriol, a resident of Barcelona, Spain, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, and one of the nation’s oldest men, turns 110 today, according to Diari de Girona.
Joan Escudé i Farriol was born in Capellades, Catalonia, Spain, on 6 January 1916, into a family that soon fell into extreme poverty after the early death of his father. Raised by his mother, Pepa Farriol, who never remarried, Joan grew up under difficult conditions that limited his schooling. Unable to survive on their own, the family moved in with his maternal grandmother before eventually leaving Capellades in search of better opportunities. In March 1927, when Joan was 11, his mother found work in Barcelona, and the family relocated there.
During his teenage years, Joan became politically aware following the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic, especially after losing his job in a religious imagery workshop. While working as an apprentice at a Parker Pen workshop, he was exposed to anti-Catalan rhetoric in the Madrid newspaper El Imparcial, which motivated him to join the Catalan nationalist party Estat Català.
The military uprising of 19 July 1936 abruptly changed his life. Shortly afterward, Joan joined a unit tasked with requisitioning weapons and later enlisted in the Pyrenean Regiment, leaving for the Aragon front in March 1937 at the age of 21. Initially assigned to rear-area duties without weapons, he later saw combat in Santa Orosia and Belchite. After the failed Republican offensive to liberate Zaragoza, his unit returned to the Aragonese Pyrenees, where it participated in an offensive that briefly recaptured Gavín and Biescas. For his actions during this attack, Joan was promoted to corporal.
He spent the final months of the war on the Ebro front. Following the collapse of Republican defenses in early 1939 and the rapid occupation of Catalonia by fascist forces, Joan went into exile and spent four months in harsh conditions in French concentration camps in Northern Catalonia. In June 1939, he returned to Barcelona.
In 1945, he married, and the couple later had three children, one of whom died at the age of five. In 1952, he moved into the apartment where he would live for the rest of his life, eventually purchasing it years later.
LongeviQuest extends warm congratulations to Joan Escudé i Farriol on his 110th birthday.
