her and was well-known and loved in her village. Martillo was blonde with bright blue eyes and was strong and agile; she was also tall. The death of her father in January 1852 prompted her to relocate to Guayaquil, where she lived with prominent nobles, and it was here that she began her mission of helping the poor and the sick and caring for abandoned children. It was also here that she took a job as a seamstress in order to fund her mission as well as supporting her eight brothers and sisters. But she soon moved to Cuenca for some months where she went from home to home and lived with whoever would take her in including Mercedes de Jesús Molina, to allow herself greater time for silent contemplation and penance. In 1865 her spiritual director fell ill, and died in 1868, which was at the time the local bishop invited her to live with the Carmelites even though she had refused the offer. In June 1868 she relocated to Lima in Peru at the advice of her new Franciscan spiritual director Pedro Gual where she lived in the Dominican convent at Patrocinio despite not being a nun. It was here that she followed a demanding schedule of eight hours of reflection which was offered in silence and solitude. In addition she devoted four hours of the night to various forms of mortification which included flagellation and the wearing of a crown of thorns. In terms of nourishment she fasted on bread and water alone and took the Eucharist as her sole form of sustenance while she was sometimes seen in an ecstatic state. In late September 1869 she developed high fevers for which medical remedies could do little and she died as a result before midnight on 8 December 1869; upon her death a nun reported a pleasant and sweet odor filling the room that Martillo had died in. She died upon the opening of the First Vatican Council. Her remains were deemed upon exhumation to be incorrupt in 1955, and were transferred from Peru back to her homeland of Ecuador until 1972, when moved to her village of Nobol. On 22 August 1998 a shrine in her honor was dedicated in Nobol where her remains now rest. Canonization Upon her death the cities that she had dwelt in came to revere and acclaim her as a saint