On November 1, 2008, Mrs. Maria Benesz turned 100. Asked about her recipe for longevity, she replied: “It does not depend on me; it depends on God.” Mrs. Maria has a large family: three children, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. As Henryka Markowska, Mrs. Maria’s eldest daughter, emphasizes, the senior owes her good condition above all to work.
Mrs. Maria was born near Lviv. During World War II, she lost her husband. In 1945, she was displaced. She settled in Włodzice Wielkie (Lwówek County). A year later, she married again. For a long time, she worked on a farm. Mrs. Maria’s second husband died in 1975. Ten years later, the woman moved to Bolesławiec, where she still lives today.
“She is cheerful, sociable and hardworking,” says Urszula Benesz, Mrs. Maria’s daughter-in-law. “She is incredibly active. She gets up at dawn. She washes, irons and cleans—she does everything women do.” In summer, the birthday celebrant loves working on her allotment. “She could sit there from dawn to dusk,” says Urszula Benesz. This year, out of concern for the senior’s health, her loved ones... put away the shovels.
Mrs. Maria’s relatives emphasize that she is the mainstay of the family. “She said that as long as she is alive, we will spend all the holidays together,” says Urszula Benesz. “And no one is allowed to be absent,” she adds.
During the ceremony marking the 100th birthday of the woman from Bolesławiec, held on November 6 at the Wedding Palace, Włodzimierz Stoch, a representative of the Lower Silesian voivode, read two congratulatory letters: one from Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the other from Deputy Voivode Zdzisław Średniawski. Bolesławiec Mayor Piotr Roman presented the distinguished celebrant with flowers and a plaid blanket, wishing her another hundred years. The senior replied that she only wished never to lack the strength to work.
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