Hot Time, Summer in the Cemetery: Paying Our Respects to the Departed

february 7, 2012

We visited the Recoleta cemetery on the hottest day yet in Buenos Aires at 39+ degrees centigrade.  We entered the cemetery at noon (our normal crazy routine), and since we had missed the English tour guide, we grabbed a map and attempted to find the carrot in the maze--Eva Peron’s resting place.  With approximately 2000 monuments and mausoleums ranging between six to twelve feet high or more, it was not an easy task.  It was like going on a scavenger hunt…two old buzzards checking out the graves of others, long since departed.  Many of the stone or brick buildings have glass French doors that allow you to look into them and see fake, flower laden altars.  Very elaborate coffins rest beneath the altars.   Some of the coffins were in various stages of degradation, but many were well preserved and beautiful. All were made of century’s old carved wood, with thick, heavy brass handles and adornments. They reminded me of fine French or Spanish furniture.  Many of these “tiny homes” for the dead also had dust laden basements that held more coffins or urns, often stacked on top of each other. 

Eva’s resting place was in the Duarte family monument.  I wondered why she didn’t have a mausoleum of her own, which prompted me to do a little research on this interesting historical figure.  Eva was born to her unmarried mother in 1919 and was one of five children.  Her mother was soon abandoned by Eva’s father, whose surname was Duarte. The family was forced to live in near- poverty while the mother took in sewing and cleaned homes.  At age 15, Eva set her sights on becoming an actress and moved to Buenos Aires.  It wasn’t long before she fulfilled her dream by becoming a very popular radio actress, which also made her financially stable for the first time in her life.  She married Juan Peron at age 27 and was soon seen on his arm on the presidential campaign trail. As first lady, she was very involved in women’s rights and that of the poor.  She even campaigned to become vice-president for a period of time.  Because of her support of the labor unions and work with the poor she was very popular throughout the country.   

However Eva’s bid for vice-president had to be halted when she became ill with cervical cancer.  Unfortunately, even with surgery and experimental (at the time) chemotherapy she died at the young age of Thirty-three.  It seems that even in death Eva led an unsettled existence.  After her death she was embalmed with a special glycerin substance to keep her body from degrading.  Juan Peron kept her body in the office she once occupied, waiting for a monument to be resurrected in her honor where she would then be displayed for public viewing.  However, not more than two years later, Juan Peron was overthrown in a military coup and was exiled to Spain. 

Unfortunately, he didn’t make arrangements for Eva’s body, and the military secreted it away for a period of sixteen years.  Eventually her remains were recovered and sent to Spain, where Peron now lived with his third wife, Isabel.  It is said that Isabel and Juan kept Eva’s body on a platform in the kitchen by the table.  Eventually, after Juan’s death, Isabel rose to power and returned to Buenos Aires and brought Eva with her.  She decided to place the body into the unremarkable Duarte crypt where she remains buried securely today, several chambers below the ground.  However, it is rumored that Eva’s preference would have been to be buried in a more humble place among the common people. 

All the monuments to the departed were interesting on many levels.  One might believe that it is a wonderful place for relatives to visit and pay their respects on a regular basis.  Yet, it was obvious that once all the relatives were also taking their final rest within the chamber walls, that the buildings could fall into disrepair with no one left to care for them.  I noticed that a few of the earliest ones, made of brick, appeared on the verge of disintegration into dust, leaving the urns and coffins sadly unprotected and open to the elements.  Our self-guided tour lasted a little over an hour, and with the heat of the day projecting off the granite and marble monuments and stone paths, unlike Eva, we began to melt, and sought refuge in our own hideout within the cool modern apartment walls.