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n some aspects they were night and day, like their husbands. One wanted to accompany her husband, Lluís Companys, everywhere and be recognized. The other stayed at home and people thought Josep Tarradellas was single. Carme Ballester was a politicized woman, who wanted to give her opinion and be heard. Antònia Macià was reserved, and although she had her political ideas, she was very careful not to express them, as her husband asked her, being against ladies meddling in government and party affairs. In other facets, they were women with parallel paths. Both dedicated themselves to sewing at different times in their lives to survive and also experienced the disapproving glances of Barcelona's bourgeois ladies, being as they were, despite their working-class origins, wives of two of the most prominent politicians in Catalonia in the 1930s. Above all, Ballester and Macià accompanied Companys and Tarradellas in their devotion to their children. In the case of the former, the tragic search for Lluïset, in the context of the Nazi occupation in France, led to his arrest and subsequent execution. Carme Ballester, once she located him, took care of him for the rest of his life, even though she was not his biological mother. In the case of the latter, Montserrat's Down syndrome was always taken into consideration in a humane, natural way, with the support of Antònia Macià, who took good care of her first daughter.
The fifty or so people who gathered at the Francesca Bonnemaison space in Barcelona on October 17 were able to follow the life journey of two women with biographies in capital letters, apart from the transcendent journey of their partners. They did so guided by two good connoisseurs of their figures, the historian Oriol Dueñas, author of the recent and interesting biography Carme Ballester: compromís, resistència i solitud (Gregal, 2018) and Montserrat Catalán, until a couple of years ago director of the Montserrat Tarradellas i Macià Archive, former secretary to President Tarradellas and a person of Antònia Macià's strictest confidence.
The confrontation of these biographies represents an initiative to bring together the lives of women who deserve to be highlighted, the result of the collaboration of the Institut Català de les Dones, the Josep Termes chair and the support of the Diputació de Barcelona, benefiting from the auspices of the cycle Doblemente invisibles.Dueñas, in a presentation accompanied by little-known images of Ballester, wanted to emphasize her strong character, "the influence on Companys and the happiness she experienced as a result of her relationship with him and their marriage, even though it occurred once the Civil War had already begun." After the war, in exile, it was precisely Tarradellas who helped her most to overcome the hardships and loneliness of someone who had acted as first lady, even though the position was not institutionalized. "When I visited Tarradellas in Saint Martin le Beau -he recalled in his magnificent and detailed Catalan speech-, Carmencita always wanted to drink Evian." This was arranged as much as possible by Antònia, who for years had taken over as the wife of the president of the Generalitat in exile, a woman who "above all always knew how to be." The confrontation of these biographies represents an initiative to bring together lives of women who deserve to be highlighted, fruit of the collaboration of the Catalan Women's Institute, the Josep Termes chair and the support of the Diputació de Barcelona, benefiting from the sponsorship of the cycle Doubly invisible due to their female condition and the lack of recognition in the official or better-known historical narrative. The cycle has already covered the lives of Teresa Mañé, Carme Serrallonga, Carme Karr, Pepita Casanellas, and María Lorenza Longo. If upon reading these names the reader has not known that they are a pedagogue, editor, and anarchist, a pedagogue and translator, a writer and musicologist, a pedagogue, and a reformist nun, they can well become aware of the need to attend the rest of the cycle's conferences. On November 6, in the same space, journalist Genís Sinca and writer Betsabé García will confront the trajectories of two female athletes, athlete Ana María Martínez Sagi and aviator María Pepa Colomer. On November 14, doctor Carlos Hervás and historian Antonieta Jarne will present the lives of two female scientists, anesthesiologist María Oliveras and doctor and politician Aurelia Pijoan. On November 28, the exciting biographies of journalist Irene Polo and pianist Maria Canals will close the cycle, presented by communication professor Elvira Altés and journalist Ana María Dávila.