Celeste Caeiro’s small gesture named a revolution
The Portuguese restaurant worker and single mother died on November 15th, aged 91
People told all sorts of stories about carnations. That they were a divine flower. That they sprang from the eyes of a shepherd whom the Goddess Diana blinded for being too handsome, or from the tears of Our Lady as she stood by the cross. The only thing that Celeste Caeiro knew for sure about carnations, that morning of April 25th 1974, was that an awful lot of them were waiting in the warehouse in buckets, and that she and the rest of the staff at Sir Restaurant would have to fetch them and put them on all the tables, because the bosses wanted to throw a party.
This article appeared in the Obituary section of the print edition under the headline “Celeste Caeiro”
Obituary November 30th 2024
From the November 30th 2024 edition
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