She is an adoptive Sardinian . Maria Massimi arrived in Ogliastra in 1979, when she was 53, with her four children. She had been a widow for some time and in Tortolì she married Emilio Selenu, with whom she had her fifth child. Yesterday, the grandmother from Poggio delle Rose, a hamlet of 124 inhabitants in the municipality of Cermignano, in the province of Teramo, turned 100.

A lifelong homemaker, she is passionate about cooking . When she arrived in Tortolì , she immediately learned to make culurgionis , which she loves and which she wanted to enrich her birthday menu with, along with roast meat and the customary cake . A woman of deep faith, she is devoted to Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, who is venerated in her hometown, where a very young Maria (the eldest of eight children) participated, along with her family, in religious ceremonies.

Grandma Maria, with her eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, spends her days at home, watching television and praying the rosary. On her birthday, she received several visits, including those from the mayor of Tortolì, Marcello Ladu, and the city councilor for culture, Rita Cocco.

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