«I was born on 17 February 1915, in Carloforte... I got married at 36, to Luigi Quaquero, without the c»: Luisetta Mercalli is keen to point this out, elegant and impeccable as always, who today crossed the extraordinary finish line of 109 years and in the land of centenarians, she is the second oldest in Sardinia, after Mrs. Amelia Addari, who is 112 years old.

And the party, for Luisetta, the oldest woman in the city of Cagliari and the fiftieth in Italy, in the Su Planu Rsa was everyone's party, with a joyful sense of belonging and great affection on the part of this small community. Surrounded by her beloved daughters Angela and Myriam with her granddaughters Alice, Elena and Francesca she blew out the 109 candles: «On behalf of the municipal administration, the mayor and my staff with great pride we send the best wishes of the city of Cagliari to Mrs. Mercalli for the his 109 years": thus Edoardo Tocco, president of the City Council of Cagliari, who presented Luisetta Mercalli with a plaque with a medal and the tricolor sash.

Luisetta arrived in Cagliari at the age of 12 and a half in the Institute of the Carlo Felice Sisters to study and graduated very early at the age of 16 in the School of Method for Maternal Education, now the Pedagogical Institute.

In recent years Luisetta has told with naturalness and simplicity and with an extraordinary memory the news of her intense and full life, dedicated to work and family, but crossed by the most dramatic events of the last century, from the first to the second world war, with the bombing of Carloforte on 4 April 1943, with 13 dead and many injured to whom she assisted, even following them to the hospital in Iglesias.

But Luisetta has also overcome the tragedy of pandemics, from one millennium to the next: she overcame the terrible Spanish flu at 3 years old and has also overcome Covid unscathed in this millennium.

A true pioneer for that period, she began teaching at a very young age at just 17 years old, because, as she says with a smile, "she was forced" by the principal to accept a 15-day substitution, right in Carloforte, as a teacher at the Professional Training School, and since then she didn't stop until she was 62, with 46 years of service: but a small detail, in 1938 she had to go to Padua to obtain the specific title at the Professional Magisterium for Women and to Rome to take the state exam.