Mary Marques was believed to be the world's 22d-oldest person, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which validates birthdates of those over 110, known as supercentenarians. (Robert Young/
Gerontology Research Group)
By Alice C. Elwell and Beth Daley
Boston Globe Correspondent And Globe Staff
January 6, 2008
The memories Mary Marques related to her family were as sharp as they were long. At 5, she dozed while tending goats in the hills of Portugal and, after being spanked, was told to find the lost animals. More than a century later, she remembered dancing a careful waltz for her 105th birthday.
Marques, 111 - and Massachusetts' oldest-known verified resident - died in her sleep Thursday in the Julian J. Leavitt Family Jewish Nursing Home in Longmeadow. She was believed to be the world's 22d-oldest person, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which validates birthdates of those over 110, who are known as supercentenarians.
Through the decades, the great-great-grandmother maintained the same simple, gentle, and gracious spirit that drew people to her, and, her family suspects, kept her living so long. Marques learned to worry about the things she could do something about and not worry about the rest.
"She was easy-going and didn't create stress," said Robert Denehy of Brookfield, Marques's grandson. "Even when she was poor she would have given the shirt off her back."
Marques never learned to read, write, or drive. Yet despite her lack of formal education, she had a quick, intelligent mind and loved to watch game shows such as "Jeopardy!" and "Wheel of Fortune," according to granddaughter Rosemary Suprenant of Warren.
Marques gardened until she was 105. She crocheted until the day she died, making afghans, covers for tissue boxes, and pin cushions fashioned out of tuna cans, Denehy said.
Born Feb. 11, 1896, Marques, whose maiden name was Nunes, married Albano Marques in Portugal. There she gave birth to two daughters - Mary Alice Cullers, who died in 1997 - and Mary Rosa, who is 92 and living in a Holyoke nursing home. She followed her husband to the United States in 1936.
After arriving in New Jersey, she soon moved to Holyoke, which had a large Portuguese community at the time. Marques got a job as a seamstress in a hat shop with her eldest daughter, Mary Rosa. The two earned a combined wage of $2 a week and set aside a portion to send Mary Alice to Mount Holyoke College.
"She was pretty good with the needle," Denehy said.
After her husband died in the 1950s, Marques told her family she didn't need any man and refused to remarry.
Although Marques saw the advent of widespread electricity, the automobile, planes, and the Internet, she was largely unimpressed with world's technological advances.
"She just lived her life," said Suprenant, with whom Marques lived between the ages of 104 and 109.
As she got older, people often asked Marques what was the secret to her longevity. Keeping busy, Marques would respond, and a little bit of Portuguese red wine. Suprenant said she believes Marques's first 40 years free of processed foods and much environmental pollution also helped. Marques also ate simply - lots of vegetables and chorizo and salted cod. She never smoked.
Marques drew the attention of a team of researchers at Boston University who study New England supercentenarians to understand why they avoid most of the lethal ailments such as diabetes, stroke, and heart disease that strike so many elders. There is only about one supercentenarian in every 7 million people, according to Tom Perls, associate professor of medicine at Boston University's School of Medicine and director of the New England Supercentarian Study, the world's largest supercentenarian study.
Perls met Marques last year and was impressed.
"She was in amazing shape," he said. "We just have to think these people have something protective that is actively slowing down the rate of aging," he said. While he said environmental factors and lifestyle figure into the longevity of many older people, most people who make it past 110 seem to have genetic defenses that seem to slow aging.
Before Marques died unexpectedly, her family was busy preparing for her 112th birthday party in February. But after saying she wasn't feeling well to nursing staff after dinner, she went to bed. Nurses later discovered she had died in her sleep.
In addition to her daughter, Suprenant, and Denehy, Marques leaves three other grandchildren, more than a dozen great-grandchildren and 14 great-great-grandchildren, according to Denehy.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
