Birth
15 February 1905Sao Arriba, Holguín, CubaDeath
16 September 2019Holguín, CubaAge
114
Faustina Sarmiento Pupo
Faustina Sarmiento Pupo was a Cuban supercentenarian whose age has been validated by the Gerontology Research Group (GRG) and the Latin American Supercentenarians (LAS). She is the oldest known person ever born in Cuba as well first validated supercentenarian who lived in Cuba.
Jump to:
Biography
Faustina Sarmiento Pupo was born on 15 February 1905, in Sao Arriba, Holguín, Cuba, to Gonzalo Sarmiento Paredes and Herminia Pupo Quintana. Her father, Gonzalo, joined the army on 13 January 1898 and was a veteran of the 1895-1898 Cuban War of Independence, which was the last liberation war Cuban colonists fought against Spain. She had 4 sisters: Maria, Lola, Rosa, and Nolva. Her grandmother allegedly lived to be 112.
At the age of 17, she married Rafael Rodriguez Hidalgo. The couple had five daughters. She gave birth to her first daughter, Eloina Rodriguez Sarmiento (born on 17 May 1920), at the age of 15.
Although she never attended school, she still learned to read and write in 1959, after Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution ended.
Faustina lived in the neighborhood of 26 de Julio in Holguín, Cuba. At the age of 110, she was in excellent shape and could still walk, cook, and wash dishes, and clothes. As of February 2018, she had 30 grandchildren, 41 great-grandchildren, 67 great-great-grandchildren, and 17 great-great-great-grandchildren. At the time, two of her daughters were still living, one of whom, Esther Marina Rodriguez Sarmiento, was born on 22 August 1923. Her other living daughter was Gloria Rodríguez Sarmiento (born 14 January 1934), who was aged 85 in 2019.
When asked about the secret of her longevity, she said “doing the good things and living healthy”. Two of her sisters died at the ages of 105 and 99 respectively.
Faustina Sarmiento Pupo passed away in the city of Holguín, Cuba, on 16 September 2019, at the age of 114 years, 213 days.
Advertise With Us
Learn how to advertiseRecognition
Her age was verified by Elivia Gomez, Fabrizio Villatoro and Stefan Maglov, and validated by the GRG on 6 September 2019. She became the first validated Cuban supercentenarian.
At the time of her death, she was the oldest living person in North American and Caribbean regions, and the sixth-oldest living person in the world, behind Kane Tanaka, Lucile Randon, Francisca Celsa dos Santos, Jeanne Bot, and Shigeyo Nakachi.
At the time of death, she possibly held the record of the oldest living parent-child pair in the world along with her daughter Esther Marina, with a combined age of 220 years, and 238 days at the time of her death.