Peron - Childhood and Youth

Childhood and Youth

Perón was born in Lobos, Buenos Aires Province, on October 8, 1895. He was the son of Juana Sosa Toledo and Mario Tomás Perón. Juana Sosa was descended from indigenous Tehuelche from Patagonia in Argentina's south and his father, Mario Perón's forbears emigrated to Argentina from Spain, and the Italian island of Sardinia; in later life Perón would publicly express his pride in his Sardinian roots. The Perón branch of his family originated in Sardinia, from which his great-grandfather emigrated in the 1830s. He became a successful shoe merchant in Buenos Aires, and Perón's grandfather was a prosperous physician; his death in 1889 left his widow nearly destitute, however, and Perón's father relocated to then-rural Lobos, where he administered an estancia and met his future wife. The couple had their two sons out of wedlock and married in 1901.

His father migrated to the Patagonia region that year, where he later purchased a sheep ranch. Perón himself was sent away in 1904 to a boarding school in Buenos Aires directed by his paternal grandmother, where he received a strict Catholic upbringing. His father's undertaking ultimately failed, and he died in Buenos Aires in 1928. The youth entered the National Military College in 1911 at age 16 and graduated in 1913. He excelled less in his studies than in athletics, particularly boxing and fencing.