Born in Madrid, Died in Sotillo de la Adrada

I. Cycles of Life and Death in a Mountain Village

On 30 August 1859, the priest and bursar of Sotillo de la Adrada, Felipe Domínguez, recorded in the parish book of deaths that he had ordered the burial of Juan, who had died the previous day. On 11 September he forwarded a copy of this record to the Madrid Inclusa. In this document he specified that the child had originally come from there and had been “under the nursing care of Paula Martín, wife of Pascual Guerra”.

It was this entry that aroused our curiosity. Where exactly had the child come from? How had he ended up in a simple rural household so distant from the capital, given how long and difficult the journey was at the time? What can be known of Paula Martín and all the rest of the family that it was the foundling’s lot to go to live with? Why did he not live longer? How can we explain such an untimely death? What wider causes, errors and social privations can we attribute this to? [Wolfram Aichinger]