My dears bloggers, today I share the story of a great woman. She is a symbol of Latin culture worldwide. This is her short biography:
Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso also known by her stage name Celia Cruz (November 10, 1925 – July 16, 2003) was a Cuban-American salsa singer/performer of Afro-Cuban descent. One of the most popular salsa artists of the 20th century, she earned twenty-three gold albums and was a recipient of the National Medal of Arts. She was renowned internationally as the "Queen of Salsa", "La Guarachera de Cuba", as well as The Queen of Latin Music. She spent much of her career working in the United States and several Latin American countries. Leila Cobo of Billboard Magazineonce said "Cruz is indisputably the best known and most influential female figure in the history of Cuban music".She was part of the Ifá religion.
She was born on October 21, 1925 in the diverse, working-class neighborhood of Santos Suárez in Havana, Cuba, the second of four children. Her father, Simon Cruz, was a railroad stoker and her mother, Catalina Alfonso was a homemaker who took care of an extended family of fourteen.
She died of brain cancer at her home in Fort Lee, New Jersey, at the age of 77. Her husband, Pedro Knight (died February 3, 2007), was there for her while she was going through cancer treatments. She had no children with him. After her death, her body was taken to lie in state in Miami's Freedom Tower, where more than 200,000 fans paid their final respects. Knight had Cruz buried in a granite mausoleum that he had built in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx earlier in 2003, when she was dying. Knight chose the plot on which it stands, which is near the gravestones of Duke Ellington and Miles Davis, because it was accessible to fans, and had four windows built into it so that fans could see inside when paying their respects. Knight was known to share his time there with visiting fans. Knight himself was buried with Cruz in the same mausoleum following his death on February 3, 2007. An epilogue in her autobiography notes that, in accordance with her wishes, Cuban soil which she had saved from a visit to Guantánamo Bay was used in her entombment.
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