Eva Perón was born in 1919 in Los Toldos – a small town in Buenos Aires Province, with a reputation for abject poverty. She was descended from Basque immigrants – French on her father's side and Spanish on her mother's. Her father, Juan Duarte, was a wealthy rancher from the nearby city of Chivilcoy, where he already had a wife and family. "At that time in rural Argentina" (according to Wikipedia), "it was not uncommon for a wealthy man to have multiple families".
When Eva was one year old, Duarte returned to his legal family. Eva's mother, Juana Ibarguren, was left destitute and was forced to move, with her illegitimate children (it's not clear how many) to the poorest area of Junin – another city in Buenos Aires province.
Eva's autobiography, according to Wikipedia, "contains no dates or references to childhood occurrences, and does not list the location of her birth or her name at birth." Her name is given as Maria Eva Duarte on her birth certificate, but Eva Maria Ibarguren on her certificate of baptism. Wikipedia suggests that she may have had a false birth certificate created in 1945 (the year she married Juan Perón), to eradicate the record of her years of poverty.
© Haydn Thompson 2023