This January 11, it will mark 42 years since the death of the Mountain and Flat heroine Celia Sánchez Manduley, a victim of cancer, as she was approaching her 60th birthday. However, those intense years of life were enough for her to enter the nation's history indelibly.

Celia Esther de los Desamparados was born on May 9, 1920 in the town of Media Luna, in the current province of Granma in the eastern region. She was the daughter of Acacia Manduley and the rural doctor Manuel Sánchez Silveira, who had 9 children.

The mother died when Celia was a child and since then she became the follower of the father, who was an example of the best of the first republican generation of professionals. A man with a great patriotic vocation and Marti roots, who transmitted to his daughter with his example of existence devoted to rural medicine, without thinking of moving up socially profiting from his profession.

In addition, his great activism to disseminate the work of the Apostle led him together with his daughter to erect a bust in Pico Turquino in the year of its centenary in 1953, so it was not surprising that Celia became an early member of the movement July 26, founded by Fidel, after the attacks on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks in Santiago de Cuba and Bayamo, respectively.

Celia's organization of networks of peasant collaborators to support the Granma landing was essential for the survival of the expeditionaries, led by Fidel, Raúl, Almeida and Ernesto Che Guevara, among others, who, despite the great persecution of the Batista forces would make up the nucleus of the Rebel Army that would make possible the Revolutionary triumph of January 1, 1959.

She was the first woman to join the ranks of the Rebel Army, on April 23, 1957, and since then she has become the most faithful collaborator of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro, whom she accompanied until his death in the performance of high positions in the State and the Communist Party of Cuba.

One of her most relevant works was the organization and development of the Office of Historical Affairs of the Council of State, where not also dedicates herself to preserve the historical heritage of the Revolution, especially those related to the work of Fidel. It will be highlighted by the attention to those who approached her for various problems, and when heading projects of great social and economic utility under the direction of the leader of the Revolution.

On that sad afternoon of January 11, 1980, at the combatant's mourning good-bye, Armando Hart, one of her closest and dearest friends, would say words about her that today have full force to remember that thin and brave young woman from Media Luna that continues to inspire generations of revolutionaries forever:

“Our pain is very great. However, even greater is the task that Celia's encouragement prompts us to carry out. This is what Celia would like from us! This is what we will do with Celia!”