Cuban Flag Ebroiderer Tomb Found

Matanzas, Cuba, Apr 24. -The tomb of the patriotic woman who embroidererd the Cuban flag, Emilia Teurbe Tolon, was found in a cemetery of Madrid, historian and researcher Clara Enma Chavez announced.

This event is of great significance for Cuban culture and history, the historian said.

This woman's value lies on being the first Cuban deported for political reasons and being considered by Spanish colonialists promoter and informer for her husband, Cuban patriot Miguel Teurbe Tolon, Chavez explained.

Two great gestures by Emilia stand out, opposed to the social formalities in her time, because she made the original Cuban flag and left her possessions to the Economic Society of Friends of the Country, in the interest of free teaching.

The research began when Chavez contacted Ernesto Martinez, a Cuban fine artist who lives in Spain and after many efforts, discovered the house where Emilia lived in Madrid until her last breath and the tomb that keeps her remains.

Martinez made the important discovery in the cemetery of Nuestra Señora de la Almudena. Emilia was born on January 8, 1828 in a central house in the city of Matanzas, and died in Madrid in 1902.

Chavez, writer of the book entitled "Emilia Teurbe Tolon, Personification of Cuban Women," recalled that the original flag is preserved at the Revolution's Museum in Havana.

In 1950, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Cuban flag raising in Cardenas, the Congress of the Republic officially proclaimed Emilia as "Incarnation of Cuban Women." (Prensa Latina)