The city’s first and most famous canilita “Pina” dies

For decades, Río Tercero woke up to the sunshine and the smile of “Pina”. The humor and joy that this dear lady radiated was as much energy as her spirit and the legs with which she rode across the city, from one end to the other, delivering newspapers and magazines.

María Teresa Fernández, everyone recognizes her by her nickname, she was the city’s first little canilita and the best known of all the city’s lovely newspaper and magazine couriers people.

Pina died on Wednesday, October 18, in the city of her birth, at the age of 80. She has been a Canilita there for 55 years, a job she held until a few years ago.

He died after 10 a.m. on Wednesday of pneumonia that had become complicated in the last hours.

All Rio de Janeiroans will remember seeing her passing by on the bicycle of a tall lady who could hardly imagine controlling her bike in any weather condition, always carrying a basket full of newspapers and magazines.

In 1966, when the government of President Arturo Illa was overthrown by the Onganian dictatorship, she and her husband, Justo José Sparacino, who had died many years earlier, began working in the city. Otercero distributes newspapers and magazines.

Pina once said that she did not know how many kilometers she rode her bicycle to deliver goods every day, but she estimated that it must be more than 60 kilometers.

Nothing can stop her. In summer, you can often see her giving birth in the sweltering sunshine, or in the cold wind.

She was known throughout the city and left a mark of her ever-bright smile everywhere she went.

The couple Pina and Justo are synonymous with the city’s canillita.

In 2008, about 15 years ago, Kanilitaz, Pina told La Voz newspaper She learned the trade as a child living with her grandfather, Santos Fernández, who owned a newspaper and magazine kiosk. “Later, my grandfather sold it to my father-in-law, Justo Sparacino; thus, my husband became a canilita and she became a canilita with him.

Notes with Pina in La Voz, 2008

His body is on view at Cochería Lo Mar, Acuña 867, until 10 pm, tomorrow Thursday starting at 8 am. Burial will be at 10 a.m. at Parque Cooperativo Cemetery.