Poet, 102, Earns Her Diploma Woman Finishes School 86 Years After Quitting

A hundred years ago, Ana Molina Osorio hid in a sugar shack as U.S. soldiers stormed her Puerto Rican homeland. This week, she graduated from high school.

“I’m in love with life!” said the 102-year-old San Juan native. She returned to school in January, 86 years after quitting classes to go to work selling tickets at a silent film theater. “There was no money then, and school was not a priority.”

“Now I’ve done something none of my children was able to do, but things have changed,” she said, proudly clutching her diploma along with 19 other elderly students in a ceremony Monday at the Capitol.

Molina, a spry great-great grandmother, recalled one of her earliest memories: the arrival of hundreds of U.S. troops who seized the island from the Spanish colonizers in the spring of 1898, when she was nearly 3 years old.

Fearing a massive bombardment, Molina’s father stowed her and her six older siblings inside an ox cart and rushed them to a sugar shack on the outskirts of San Juan. “We waited the whole night and into a next day, until we knew there wasn’t any danger,” she said.

The May 12 attack on San Juan was a show of poor marksmanship, as the Americans at sea lobbed shells far past the centuries-old fortress and the Spanish shots fell short.

There were few injuries, and two months later the Americans peacefully sailed into the southern town of Guanica and hoisted their flag. A new era had begun for Puerto Rico, now an industrialized U.S. commonwealth.

Molina’s “A” in English is one of her proudest achievements.

An avid writer of poetry, Molina said she planned to continue sharing her love of literature with children in the impoverished housing project where she lives.

“I’m crazy about kids,” she said.

As for her many admirers in class, she said, “I tried not to break their hearts. They tried to distract me with proposals of marriage, but I’ve got more important things to do.”