May 20th, 2012

Maria Clemencia Rodriguez 's Story

Birth Year: 1928




Table of Contents





    Chapter 1: Childhood
    I was born on June 23, 1928 in Sabanilla de Montes de Oca, Canton de San Jose, Costa Rica.
    Daughter of  Engracia Rodriguez  and Isaias Melendez Gamboa.
    I am the last of four children, three girls and one boy. My brother Rodrigo (Rigo), my older sister Hortencia and my sister Teresa and then me.
    Where I lived we had family close by, I had an aunt whose name was the same as me (Clemencia Rodriguez but we used to call her "Tia Mencha), my grandparents: Antonia Fallas (my grandmother, we used to call her "Mamita") and my grandfather Santos Rodriguez Aguilar (we used to call him "Tatica"). They died when I was very young. They were born in Sabanilla as well and moved to Barrio Mexico en San Jose.
    When I was at school, I attended elementary school at the Escuela Argentina, the teacher was Claudia Gutierrez- my classroom teacher, the music teacher was Tobias Zanabria. We also had drawing class every other day and that teacher was Don Juan Manuel Sanchez. Don Juan Manuel Sanchez was a great artist and he was tall and dark, he was Indian. He was a good person. He used to paint in many ways, water colors as well.
    My sisters were in school with me but they were older than me.  Back in that time we had an army in Costa Rica, even though I don't have many memories from the army. I don't have many memories from my father either because he died when I was young. I went through all elementary school until 6th grade.
    School was different then, the children have technology today. We didn't. We were taught music with a violin or a piano. We had to walk all the way from Barrio Mexico to the school, there were no school buses and we had to walk, there were no public buses either. Many years after that, they finally put a bus, but I was out of school at that time. The house was far away from the school, we had to walk a lot every day...go through the Barrio Mexico's plaza and the church, were they had a Florist, Sra. Teresa Mora. I had to leave at 6:00 am to be there at 7:00 when school began. We had to exercise a little bit when we came in, then get to the line and sing a song. It was nice. Then the bell would ring and class was on.
    I had very good grammar and I still remember: all the words that have accents, all the words that have a "B" instead of a "V" and vice versa. I was a A+ student but we did not get to go to College, there was only one College then. The "Universidad de Costa Rica" did not exist then until 1948. After many years we had high schools and universities, but I was an adult already.
    We were 5 in my family, but we lived with my grandparents and my aunt and cousin. My grandpa lived up to be 103 years old and grandma up to 112 years old. He used to call me "chichi", he used to tell me to go get my cousin (because I was younger) and my cousin would bring him rum because he was feeling sick. He was always cold. He was told and skinny. My cousin was young too, his name was Guillermo.
    My grandfather died a Good Friday at 3:00 pm (people here believe that Jesus died on a Good Friday at 3:00pm), my grandmother died, my grandfather died...I don't remember very well but she died in june...maybe june 14 or so, but Grandpa died on Good Friday.  She was 1 year older than grandpa. They had 4 children.: Clemencia, Engracia, Genaro and Benjamin, two girls and two boys. All of them are dead now. I remember them being very old.
    Living at home with everybody was fun. We all got along with each other. My cousin and my sisters, we all play together and we pretended we had a store (pulperia) and money was pieces of glass and we would make "pounds of stuff...rice and beans, sugar... with old bags and dirt. Kids from the neighborhood would come to play with us. The neighbor was Adela Cordoba and she had a little girl (Carmen Azofeifa) in first grade with me.


    Chapter 2: Growing up
    When I was a teenager, my mother, my sisters and I moved to San Jose, because my brother got married. My sisters and I had a job now.
    When I grew up, I remember the war. I remember Figueres fighting in Cartago, Ochomogo and they said he was shooting all over the place, there were many men with him and Carmen Granados (an famous artist here) used to sing a "corrido" called "Pepe Figueres", she had a beautiful voice. He was in the finca "La Lucha" y la "Victoria", I don't remember. Pepe Figueres was brave and he won the revolution, the war was short and then, after that, we never had a war again, there was no more army, we always have been free, all our lives, Thank God, we never have had a war in Costa Rica.
    I was living In San Jose when they had the war. We all were older and had a job, we lived by the cementery street in a house that costed 25 colones a  month for the rent (it was cheap) the house had 4 bedrooms. My mother used to make tortillas for sale, but she was always sick, she had an operation because she had gallbladder problems. She got cancer and died, but she was older. My grandparents died because they were old too. My aunt got cancer and cried all the time because of the pain. She didn't get medicine.
    Before, things were cheap. Mencha used to buy a big bag of bread for everybody and the baker would fill it up because it was 6 pieces for 25 cents. We had cheese bread, milk bread, they were good and fresh, we had Spanish bread too. They were big pieces, you don't see that anymore, one piece of bread is expensive and has no cheese or cream, it doesn't have any flavor anymore. My mother would send us with only 2 colones to by meat and vegetables to make "Olla de Carne".
    (She laughs). Everything is so expensive now. The cost of life was cheaper, but...we were still poor. At school they  give us oatmeal in the morning and a banana and they also would give us the uniform, they also gave me the shoes because I had no shoes. Before people could find some help but not now.
    Back then, nobody had a radio. We didn't have electricity during the day. We did not cook with a stove, just with wood, that was how my mother and my aunt used to cook. The smoke was bad. When we got a radio, it was big, my aunt had some things to pick up the volume (antennas) because it would not sound without that. It was a RCA Victor, then we had a Zenith radio, it was small and rounded. Life was simpler before.
    Few people had radios or electricity.


    Chapter 3: Family Life


    After I moved to San Jose and found a job, I met Rodrigo, a man who lived close by the house. There was no neighborhood before, just few houses from we live today. He had moved from Cartago with his whole family: mother, father, brothers and sisters. His father died from cancer later.
    Back then, there were a lot of coffee fields to get to the plaza to get the bus to go to San Jose. This was a nice man who worked at the National Bank building in San Jose. He would walk with me every day, because back then, a young girl should not walk by herself through the coffee fields. We started dating and we got married on May 15th, 1948.
    Rodrigo was a quiet man who used to spend time in a room he had arranged to do his art. He used to do portraits of people and he was an amazing artist. Somewhere here I have some pieces of his work...portraits of old family members, but the pieces are so old and are in paper. It is a shame nobody but family knew what a great artist he was.
    We had four children: Mayra, Rodrigo Jr., Rosa and Eugenia. We bought a little house close by too. We wanted to be close to both families. The kids grew up playing with their cousins, they were a lot. In time, the place where we lived became a neighborhood, the coffee fields, trees and fields were gone and now they are full with houses and apartments. The neighbors' children have become doctors, attorneys and teachers and have stayed at the neighborhood; many of the old neighbors who came here first to establish a family, are dead now and the children have their own families, just like my kids.
    Rodrigo died from cancer more than 30 years ago. He was born on April 8, 1908 and he was 20 years older than me. I never married again. He was a good man, a good spouse and father for my children. Many people went to his funeral.
    I am a senior citizen now. Life went fast and it seems like everything happen just yesterday. I just turned 83 this June. I am not the same I used to be. I have the aches and problems of old age. I get sick often.
    I am lucky because my children live close by and one of my children live with me. I have many grandchildren (8) and great-grandchildren (6) who come to visit every week.
    Life is short. You have to make good choices. Family is the most important thing you have. It is important to get together and see how things are going for everybody. You need to have fear of God and with that and His blessing; you will have a long life on earth and many memories of a good life.