Arcadia Durán born about 1890 and lived in Zacatecoluca, La Paz, El Salvador. She had a sister named Mercedes and two brothers Manuel and Diego.

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Arcadia's first child with Virgilio (local hammock maker) was Maria Eufemia (Fema) Durán born in 1910, and then Rosa was born in 1914.

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​Rosa and Fema were raised by their mother Arcadia and their beloved Tia Mercedes. Mercedes is said to have a different last name - Calero.

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Arcadia died in the 1940s and Tia Mercedes died in the 1980s from natural causes believed to have been 108 years old.

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A brief part of Arcadia's life is documented in the biography of John Paul Wainwright, Lealtad y Rebeldía: La vida de Juan Pablo Wainwright by Rina Villars. Wainwright was Eufemia's partner and the father of her two girls.