My cousin from Bogota

 My second cousin, Andrea Cecilia Gomez Vera, lives in Santa Fe de Bogota, Colombia’s capital city and also the largest one. She is the daughter of Alfredo Gomez Montero, first cousin of my mother, and Virgina Vera. They had to move there from Caracas because her parents are victims of political persecution by Venezuela's current government.
Bogota is located at 2,625 meters above sea level, so it has a cool mountain climate throughout the year. It also has an estimated population of about 8,500,000 inhabitants, figuring in the 30th largest city of the world. This city is known for its tasty hot chocolate and its high cultural level. Because Bogota contains multiple universities, libraries and public art work - the law requires that all buildings in downtown Bogota must have a work of art on its front - is also known as the "Athens of South America"

 

Costa Rica: Pura Vida!

My Great-Grandfather Guillermo Cordido Rodriguez was a landowner, a widower and Governor of the state of Yaracuy, Venezuela, during the dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez. When this government fell in 1858, my Great-Grandfather was stripped of all his goods and exile in Costa Rica with his three younger daughters. There, he married a local lady, Leticia, and have two daughters, Mariantonieta and Soraya, my Great-Aunts, whom I haven’t had the pleasure to meet yet.

They both live with their families in San José, the capital of the beautiful Central American country where they were born: Costa Rica. Its tropical climate and variety of beaches, at both the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, make this country a tropical paradise that I hope to visit someday, and say as the local say when they’re enjoying: Pura Vida!

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DON’T DRINK AND DRIVE



Don’t drink and drive.  How many times we’ve heard this phrase. So many that sounds hollow, until tragedy touches you close…

Recently something happened. Something t hat shouldn’t have happened. One of my father’s first cousins was killed in a tragic accident. Early on a sunny Sunday morning on his beloved city of Coro, located in Falcon, Venezuela, Jose Angel Garcia Cordido was biking with a group he organized among neighbors, patients and family, when fate stoke him in the shape of a drunk  police man.   

On his early forties he was not only a husband and father of two. Uncle Jose was a recognized Cardiologist, an active leader on his community, with social sensitivity and a generous heart. 



Jose Angel

Drinking and  driving doesn’t only affect the driver. It’s hard to measure how many lives, how many families a drunk driver can affect with this irresponsible behavior.



Full House

So most of my family has decided to come spend Christmas in my house. Tuesday, the first bit arrived, one of my mom’s sister with my adorable little cousin, she’s ten months old. Later, after winter break starts tree more of my mom’s sister, along with 11 cousins will be arriving. My house only has tree rooms. Well figure out how to fit when they get here I guess.  It’ll be fun.

ice cream

Maria Cristina also sends me these ice cream recipes

 

Vanilla ice cream.

1 can of condensed milk, 1 can of evaporated milk, 1 can water

2 eggs Vanilla extract

Condensed milk is mixed with water, is put in the vanilla, beaten egg yolks and evaporated milk pot. Place it in the freezer until medium-hard. Then this is removed and mixed with the 2 egg well beaten, mix it and place in freezer until is very cold.
Chocolate ice cream.

Same as above but adding a mixture of chocolate made in this way: melt 6 tablets of chocolate in ½ cup water, and when you lower the fire  put 1 tablespoon butter and mix it with evaporated milk is added to that.

 

Gomez descendance

Maria Cristina from the Sucre Eduardo side (correspondent to Luciani Eduardo) 

Maria Cristina recently send me an e-mail in reference to one of my first post Match.com in the 20^th century, she corrected me in some historic errors.

 She said that Juancho Gomez actually died on June 29, 1923, not 1935, on the same year as Juan Vicente. He was also the governor, and first vice-president. He was very dedicated to his position and in following his brother’s rule.

Something on Calagary

My aunt Cecilia, one of my mom's four sisters, lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, since 2006.Today she wanted to share her favorite landmarks of the city: Calgary's Plus 15 System and Calgary Tower.

Calgary Plus 15 is a system of bridges and walkways located 15 feet above the ground that communicate the most important buildings in downtown Calgary. This public skywalk was designed to protect pedestrians from inclement weather during the long Canadian winter and to help reduce street’s crowding.  Plus 15 has 57 bridges and extends for 16 km, the equivalent in length to more than 159 football fields placed end-to-end. Plus 15 System was designed and built in the late 60's.

The Calgary Tower, originally Husky Tower, is an observatory located in Downtown Calgary, which rises 191 meters (626 feet) above street level.  It was built as a tribute to Canada's centennial.  Officially opened in 1968, it is a contemporary construction - and also is connected - with Plus 15 System. In 1988 a large natural gas-fired cauldron was constructed on its top, in which the Olympic flame shined during Calgary's Winter Olympics. This torch is nowadays lit only on special occasions, including Canada Day; recently was ignited during the Vancouver’s Olympic Games in 2010, celebrated again in Canada.

In the top's lower level it’s found the observation deck, which has a glass rotunda added in 1999, and a glass floor extension added on 2005. (When standing on the glass, one can look straight down on 9th Avenue South and Centre Street). On the upper level it counts with a souvenir shop and a revolving restaurant that could complete a 360 degree turn in 45 minutes, having the better views of Downtown Calgary.

Paris, je t’aime

My favorite place in Paris is Montmartre. Each time I go there I feel that I’m living in a movie, in a dream. There’s always a guy playing the guitar, singing songs that make me smile and remember beautiful moments.

Usually I like to go there before the sunset; I can assure one can see the most beautiful view of the city at this time. 

I love walking through Montmartre’s little streets as I appreciate the gifted painters, their ability to create art. I never forget to eat (the best onion soup I have ever tasted in my life), in typical little cafe. And off course, my day is not finished till I eat a ‘crepe nutella-banane’… then I can definitely say: ‘Paris, je t’aime”.

By: Isabella Vogeler

Isabella is my first cousin on my mother’s side; her mom is my mom’s sister. She also happens to be, curiously enough, my fifth cousin on my father’s side; her dad’s great-great-great grandfather is also my dad’s.

The Eldest

Aunt Pura is my great-aunt on my father’s side. She has 99 years of age. This automatically makes her the oldest relative I have alive.  

Tia Pura is the youngest of five sisters born in Valladolid, Spain, daughters of Fabiana Ascencio and Andres Valero. In 1935 the Valero family decided to immigrate to America, seeking a better future. They choose Havana, Cuba, as their new home, where they got installed and start working and producing. Nevertheless they didn’t get intergraded with the Cuban mainstream society, socializing mostly with Spanish immigrants, and marrying three of their daughters to the sons of these Spanish, except Carmina who married a doctor politically attached to the Cuban revolution.  Maruja married Luis Vallalta, born in Sitges, and had a son (who is my grandfather Luis); Pilar married Jose Ramon Mendez Fort and had two children, Edelma, and Jose Ramon, who married Anita, a beautiful mulatto woman. Tia Pura married Jesus Perez.

 Life was good in Cuba, but this quiet life, of peace and honest work, was interrupted by the Cuban revolution. Fidel Castro and his gang of Communists came to power in a coup d’état. The new government expropriated - without paying - the family property, land and full-productive factories.  Except Carmina, the Valero Ascencio sisters and their families were then forced to flee the island to Miami in a Red Cross ship, carrying as allowed baggage only what they were wearing. There is an anecdote about my Great-great-mother Fabiana, who was a slim and petite lady - and at the time was expecting his first great-grandson (my father); since they were not allowed to take luggage out of Cuba, she tried to hide four dresses, wearing them in one on top of the other. But the military government agents “caught her” and made her remove three ... Outrageous, isn’t it?  From Miami the family is dispersed throughout the world.

After this sad episode, aunt Pura returns to Madrid with her husband's family, and there they started over again. They didn’t have direct descendants.

Today she is 99 years-old and is already senile; she neither remembers nor recognizes us when we call her to say hello. Aunt Pura currently lives in a nursing home in Madrid, visited only by her husband's nephews who live nearby.

The youngest

The youngest of my family is my baby-girl cousin, born this year on January 23rd, in Caracas, Venezuela. Is the first-born daughter of my mom's younger sister, Ana Teresa Gomez Luciani, and her husband, José Francisco Rodriguez - "Uncle Paco" – Venezuelan (but his roots are Gallegos, from Galicia, Spain).  Despite being the smallest, she has a respectably big name: Ameliana Isabel de La Virgen del Valle.

Having this name has more than one reason: To begin the first name comes from the combination of the name of my aunt with the name of uncle Paco’s mom, Amelia. The second name comes from being a very expected and highly elusive baby; after many attempts, years and treatments, my uncles finally got pregnant, dedicating her daughter to Santa Isabel, biblical character whose pregnancy was also miraculous. But when she was less than 24 hours old, the baby began to suffer internal bleeding and therefore had to be translated to the intensive care unit in a much compromised state of health. My family is Catholic, devoted to the Virgin Mary in her title of Our Lady of the Valley, and our prayers for the recovery of Ameliana were heard. The girl is a constant overflow of joy, as if she understood the gift of life, and the love and tenderness that she awakens all around her.

 

The Luciani Eduardo

Luciani is a surname originally from Rome, Italy, while the surname Eduardo (Edwards) goes back to Dublin, Ireland. My great-grandfather on my mother’s mother side, Enrique Luciani Eduardo had six siblings. Today I want to introduce you three of these siblings because of their important role in Venezuelan society and life of last century.

(1881 - 1971) Lucila Luciani Eduardo was an extraordinary character, a woman with great civil values within an excessively militarized country. She was an intellectual lady inside a society of men, possessing a cosmopolitan culture and a feminist vein really ahead of her time. Lucila was the first woman who enters as an Individual Number in the Venezuelan Academy of History.

(1886 - 1979) Domingo Luciani Eduardo was a surgeon and teacher in Venezuela. After he graduated as a Doctor, he worked at the Civil Hospital of Caracas side by side with Dr. José Gregorio Hernandez.  Later he traveled to Europe where he specialized in Advanced General Surgery, Gynecology, Urology and Operative Medicine. After he returned to Venezuela and for over 40 years, Domingo was one of the most outstanding teachers of the Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad Central de Venezuela; his student often vied for top positions in the classroom to monitor his teaching methods.  For his legacy of education and health, he received numerous honors throughout his career.  Also the Eastern General Hospital of Caracas proudly bears his name.

(1894-1956) Jorge Luciani Eduardo was an outstanding essayist, historian, politician and diplomat.  As a student he strongly opposed the government of Juan Vicente Gomez for which he was imprisoned and tortured in "The Rotunda". After Gomez’s government falls, Jorge Luciani begins his diplomatic career, serving a democratic Venezuela as Council at Barcelona, Guayaquil, Amsterdam and Southampton.

From The Sublime To The Ridiculous

"From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a single step”, uncertain phrase by Napoleon Bonaparte, used by my cousin Ana Cecilia every time she sees photos of her childhood and youth, spent by the beaches of her native Puerto La Cruz.
Ana Cecilia was born and raised in a little oil camp where her father worked, located in the Bay of Guanta, Venezuela.  Guanta is embedded in one of the most beautiful tropical areas of the world, Mochima National Park, which contains a number of Caribbean islands and beaches that are now only in her dreams. "When Friday arrived it was: shoes and clothes off, swimsuits on and go barefooted!" says Ana remembering her school days, rewarded by weekends full of rides with neighbors and friends in the family boat, heading to Chimana, Isla Grande, Playa El Saco, Puinare, Conoma, Isla El Faro among other beaches located in her backyard.
Due to political persecution by the current government of Venezuela upon her father and most of the workers of the national oil company of Venezuela PDVSA (with a single stroke of the pen, 21,000 of the most skilled oil workers of the world were fired) Ana Cecilia and her family had to emigrate to Calgary, Alberta, Canada.  There her father can work in peace, and her family has been established. Ana is a student at the University of Calgary and they have a little house with an overlooking view of the Rocky Mountains. But when the temperature intensifies and reaches 40 °F below, and she is with a red nose, wrapped in coats, scarves and snow boots inside the house, she always looks with nostalgia her childhood photos in a bikini, and sighs: "from the sublime to the ridiculous "

My cousin Ana Cecilia Gomez Blesa lives, laughs and suffers in the city of Calgary, Canada; she is the daughter of my aunt Cecilia Gomez, sister of my mother.

The best dessert, they are from my grandmother

My grandmother, she bakes the best cakes, and sweets, and cookies…

I know, I know, this is the expected, the major cliché; exceedingly common for a person to say this.  Regardless, I believe this fact (that my grandma’s cakes are the most delicious) to be a valid subject to communicate in this post.

It’s not only me, but many other Venezuelan’s seem to think so as well, as she is a considerably popular pastry chef in the region. Besides to rub shoulders with the best chef in Caracas gourmet world, she had being special guest –numerous times - at renowned food TV programs, and her recipes had been published in more than one Magazine.  Her “dulcitos criollos” had won prizes in Paris’ Food Festivals and her Chocolate Cake had delighted tables from Germany to remote places as Australia.

As if not enough my “Abuela Gata”, as we grandchildren call her, has a very large philanthropic work, dedicating a big part of her life to charities, covering from being a volunteer nurse at the burned section of J.M. de los Rios, Caracas’ Children Hospital, to donate to “Fundacion Nuevo D.I.A.” – dedicated to assist low-income autistic children - all the profit of her book entitled “El divino placer de comer sabroso” (The divine pleasure of delicious eating).

My “Abuela Gata” is Carmen Elena Luciani Uribe, better known as "La Gata Luciani", born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, were she still works and resides. She is the mother of my mother.

By the way, her book is rightfully titled and it’s filled with truly the most delicious recipes. My Personal favorite is “Galletas con chocolate” (Cookies with chocolate), a wonderful and extremely easy to prepare dessert that I have enjoyed making – and eating - since I was very young. Today I’d like to share it with you.       

 

Galletas con Chocolate (10 a 12 portions)

Ingredients:

150 grams (5.5 oz.) of baking semisweet chocolate

A bit of milk

¼ Kg (9 oz.) of unsalted butter

200 g (7 oz.) of powdered sugar

4 eggs yolks

1 packet of “Galletas Maria”, traditional Spanish biscuits (it can be substituted with graham crackers).

 

Preparation:

1)      Simmer the chocolate with the milk, until it dissolves. Put it away to cool down.

2)      Using a mixer, cream the butter very well. Then add the powdered sugar and the egg yolks.

3)      Add the melted chocolate and mix well, to obtain a homogeneous cream.

4)      Break the “Galletas Maria” with your hands into big pieces and then incorporate them with the butter cream created previously, using a wooden spoon.

5)      Pour the mixture in a glass piece, previously greased. Places it in the freezer until is ready to eat (is better to leave it overnight).

6)      Divide it using a knife. Serve and enjoy!

Juan Vicente Gomez: A Monster, A Saint or Just A Human being

Juan Vicente Gomez (1859-1935)
President of Venezuela between 1908 and 1935
Born in La Mulera, Tachira, Venezuela, in the midst of an important family of Andean farmers, Gomez comes from a race adventurous and heroic, outrageous and cruel, wicked and mystical, where concubinage was sometimes an established norm. For some biased biographers, his name belongs to an illustrious lineage of conquerors, founders of cities, heroes and with a scent of sanctity.
Supported by his family, he became a military man, earning the title of General in 1903, during the civil war, in which local revolutionary leaders were subdued and removed throughout Venezuela. Juan Vicente Gomez was a great hero in the process of pacification of the country and was called the “Benemerito”, the hero of Venezuela.
In 1908 he reached the government through a coup d’état. He self-proclaimed Commander of the Army and was president of Venezuela for 27 years. As president Juan Vicente Gomez began Venezuela's oil exploration, providing concessions and significant benefits to foreign corporations.  At the same time, and unintentionally, he made Venezuelan farm workers abandon the fields to work with the oil companies, causing the halt of the agricultural development. He managed the country like his personal farm, gave wealth only to their near family and supporters. At the same time his policies impoverished the country, delaying Venezuela’s entry into the twentieth century. During his tenure the prisons were full of political prisoners. At the jails – La Rotunda and Puerto Cabello were the worst – the prisoners received so ruthless medieval tortures. Free thought was revoked, bringing the country into decline and intellectual darkness. Despite being a lover of nature and peasant life, as a consequence of his governance, he indirectly promoted the destruction of both in Venezuela.
On the other hand, at the household level, Gomez is represented in many pictures as good and revered father, remarkably prolific, lovingly surrounded by his many offspring and grandchildren. As he had countless concubines, never was acquired,, neither the knowledge of how many, nor the identity of the numerous children he procreated, some even after he reached the age seventy.

He was the firstborn son of my Great-great-great-grandparents Pedro Cornelio Gomez and Hermenegilda Chacon Alarcon.

Match.com in the early 20th century

Under the dictatorial regime of Juan Vicente Gomez lives Teresa Torres Bello, a single mom. Her own mother Dionisia Bello had arranged for her lover’s (Don Juancho) murder, he was stabbed to death in the year 1935, considering he had gained too much power, and she feared that he would overthrow his brother, Juan Vicente himself who happeneed to also be Dionisia’s lover. So, Teresa was left alone and betrayed with her young son Gustavo Gomez Torres of merely eight years of age; alone is how she moved far away from her home and all this mess in Caracas to a town in the mountains of Tachira, Rubio. There she was hit with the dreadful news: her beloved aunt Trina Bello who was a great part of most of her few good childhood memories had died due to sickness.

Trina lived in the island of Margarita as she was rescued by General Pedro Alcantara from a tormenting episode with Teresa’s brother, her nephew Luis Felipe Torres Bello, of which her first child Edilia was born.

Even thought Teresa had never met her uncle before, and moved by the love she had for Trina, she decides to write him a letter offering her condolences. The letter turns out so alluringly beautiful that he rapidly falls in love and writes back. The letters go back and forth for a year as their love flourishes sentence by sentence. With every letter he is hocked by her charm; that is how Teresa finally chanced upon her soul mate: through mail. Among the lasts letters was a marriage certificate that they both signed.

As a result she moves to Margarita Island, with her now ten year old son, to meet her husband for the first time and to raise Edilia and her half sister Elda who was the fruit of Pedro's marriage to Trina. Then they go on to have six lovely kids together (Maria, Guillermo, Pedro, Alice, Alberto, and Homero). Pedro was a military man; he ran his house as he did his troops. With an overflow of order and propriety, he demanded that his kids were well dressed at all times and discouraged any time of conversation at the table. While Teresa was immensely kind, she dedicated the rest of her life to help the sick in her new home town, and in more than one occasion when her daughters Alice and Maria were missing some of their favorite clothes, Teresa had donated it to the poor insisting that they already had too much and others needed it more than they did.

I was introduced to this story by: Maria Margarita Leal Protzel

Married to Harry Michael

Born in Fort Benning, Georgia March 27, 51

Lives in Weston, Florida

Common ancestor: Teresa Torres Bello

                                                                            

Alberto Jose, one of the six Leal Torres kids became a military man as his father, and posted to Peru, married a local girl named Lita, and had a daughter named Margarita Leal; and Teresa's eldest son (the one she had before her marriage) is my great-grandfather.

My roots

Naturally, I will start from the beginning. 

In this post I will track down my past relatives in order to come up with relatives in the present. The first way I can think to do this is to compile some of my last names which I organized by making this chart.

Any other suggestions to help me in the pursuit of my goal are very much welcomed.

The Topic

I have a confession to make. I didn’t really choose a topic for this blog. Instead I created a source, a source where I can possibly get any theme imaginable.
My plan is to contact relatives of mine and hope they will provide me with something interesting to blog about.I will examine my family tree (no, not the parochial view of it, but a much wider version), and talk about its various branches, either those of witch I’ve known of all my life or some I never could have imagined existed, which can date back multiple generations or the exact opposite.
This means that I have an extremely wide variety of people to choose from and when I do, I plan to blog on something, anything, which either remotely or completely relates to them. It could be about an interesting hobby, a place they live or have lived, their occupation, an interesting story, their pets, or their culture, along with other themes I hope to come up with in the process.