María Magdalena Vera Vera was born in the street of La Mocora in Canuto, Manabí, Ecuador, on 29 November 1914. She went to the school of “Sin nombre” in Canuto.

At the age of 30, she married Cayetano Gil Alberto Cedeño Zambrano. The couple had 10 children: Luis Adalberto, Lucia Antonia, Jacinto Roger, Gil Auxiliador, Olga María, Cirio Monserrate, Marco Antonio, Letty and Oswaldo. She was a housewife, usually working on harvesting food such as mango, starch, coffee, cacao and yuca.

On April 7, 2010, the police visited the elderly couple with a warrant, demanding alimony payment to their former daughter-in-law. She had four children with the couple’s son, Marco Antonio, who had moved to Venezuela in 1992, leaving the children in the care of his parents. The couple was placed under house arrest for seven days, during which town residents planned to cease all work activities as a form of protest. On May 5, her husband Cayetano passed away, just two days after a second house arrest order was issued against them. Later, Vera Vera claimed that the house arrest had caused him severe depression, eventually leading to his death. According to the couple’s children, the arrest process affected his health, especially considering he was already ill. According to their son, Gil Cedeño, Cayetano was suffering from uterine cancer at the time.

On her 103rd birthday, she had 41 grandchildren and 63 great-grandchildren. During an interview conducted on this occasion, she shared the secret to her longevity, attributing it to a diet consisting of healthy and natural foods, free from chemicals, that she had maintained throughout her life. She reminisced about two significant earthquakes she had experienced – one in 1942 and a more intense one in 2016, which reportedly affected her hearing.