Antônio Cotrim / Lusa
Celeste Caeiro
The woman who transformed the carnation into the symbol of April 25, 1974, Celeste Caeiro, died this Friday at the age of 92 at Leiria Hospital.
Celeste Caeiro died. The woman who made the Carnation Revolution.
With her mother and a 5-year-old daughter under her responsibility and living in a “humble house, without radio or television”, Celeste only found out that there was a revolution when she arrived at work, on the day April 25, 1974.
On that day, the self-service where Celeste worked (no, the “Celeste dos Carnations” was not a florist), which was one year old, was not going to open its doors and the boss, “who had ordered the purchase of carnations to offer to customers and decorate the space, told the employees to take one branch each”.
Celeste picked up her bunch of carnations – “red and white” – and headed to Rossio to see “what I had been waiting for so long to happen”.
That’s when he asked a soldier what they were doing there and if he needed anything.
O soldier“of whom he never knew the identity, signaled that I wanted a cigarette” and Celeste, who suffered from lung disease and never smoked, before giving him a carnationwhich the soldier put it in the gun barrel and which would end up being the symbol of the revolution.
The story of Celeste Caeiro, intertwined with political and social aspects of the time, was told in a documentary by the Commission for the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April, with an original script by Vilma Reis and Roberto Faustino and produced by Tino Navarro and MGN Filmes Lisboa.
In the solemn session celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April, the Livre deputy and historian Rui Tavares asked that parliament honors the country’s women through statue of Celestewho came out with an armful of nails on the 25th.
At the proposal of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), the Lisbon Chamber unanimously approved, on May 7th, to honor Celeste Caeiro with the attribution of the medal of honor from the city of Lisbon and the carrying out of an “evocative intervention, to be implemented in a public space”, which has not yet happened.
She was never honored in her lifetime
This Friday, the granddaughter, Carolina Caeiro Fontelaconfirmed to Lusa that her grandmother died in the morning at Leiria Hospital due to respiratory problems, regretting that Celeste Caeiro was never honored during her lifetime.
Last April, on the occasion of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of April 25, 1974, both residents of Alcobaça clarified the gaps in history: “There are a lot of people who still think it was a flower shop [que deu um cravo a um soldado]but my grandmother was not a florist”, the granddaughter told Lusa, remembering that Celeste worked in a ‘self-service’ in the Franjinhas building, on Rua Braamcamp, in Lisbon.
Forever my Grandmother Celeste ❤️
Watch over me 🤍— Carol 🎀 (@carolinacfontel)
