Vivacious Marieta

It has always been amusing that our town’s coat of arms has a nude woman bathing in hot mineral medicinal water. The circumstance, curiosity and voices of experience have forced us to state that the girl in question really existed.

The name of the woman in the coat of arms was Marieta and she was called “the vivacious one” due to her pleasant and vivacious temperament. She was born in Sitges in 1915. Her figure became public when a painting of her appeared in an attic; it was first thought that it was a representation of the Caldes coat of arms, but it is said that it was quite the contrary.

It is said that the painting was done in 1934 by a poor painter who earned a living as a room attendant at one of the thermal springs. His name was Rafel Rams but people called him “Litu.” Litu was a true bohemian, gambler, drinker, hard talker and, above all, a womaniser. Marieta, “the vivacious one,” was a girl from a poor house in Sitges who arrived in Caldes in 1932 to work as a maid at a modern tower owned by a Barcelona family that holidayed there in summer. The Vivacious One very soon became very popular in the town due to her pleasant nature and spontaneity. She did not last long with this family and went to work at a thermal springs, where she met Litu who wasted no time in enticing her in and making her his muse. The tragedy of the war put an end to this love story, since a few months after the military revolt began, Litu enlisted to defend the Republic. Fate meant that after being wounded he was transferred to one of the military hospitals set up at the thermal springs in Caldes, where he died after being cared for by the volunteer nurse Marieta from Sitges who, like so many other women, spent many hours taking care of the war sick and wounded.

Nevertheless, life went on and she was no longer “vivacious” Marieta of Sitges. María, after the tragedy of 1936-1939, stayed in Caldes, where years later she married a local guy with whom she had five children. And many of her grandchildren still live among the locals.

Someone may well maintain that the female figure on the Caldes coat of arms is older that all this. Don’t pay too much attention to this. Let people think what makes them happy.