Marta Vergara Varas was born on 2 January 1898 in Valparaíso , Chile to Clotilde Varas Valdovinos and Pedro Vergara Silva , the youngest of three sisters . Her early years were spent there on the coast , until the 1906 Valparaíso earthquake destroyed her family home and killed her mother . From that time forward , the family moved back and forth between the coast and the capital . By the late 1920s , Vergara was working as a journalist and in 1927 when Carlos Ibáñez del Campo began his leadership after the coup d'état , she fled to Europe . Working as a correspondent for '' El Mercurio '' she made contact with other journalists
1906 Valparaíso earthquake
1906 Valparaíso earthquake
Marta Vergara