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Though she had not worked outside the home since marrying in 1948, Olivia S. Gomez didn’t hesitate to get a job after her husband died in the early 1970s.
“She wanted to stay busy,” her son Steven Gomez said. “It was good therapy for her to work.”
Hired at Twain Junior High School as a pastry maker, Gomez “worked hard,” Steven Gomez said. “At that time … everything was made by hand.”
After her workday ended in the afternoon, Gomez returned to her home in Beacon Hill to be home when her youngest son got home from high school.
“She saw to it that I went through school and didn’t get into any trouble,” Steven Gomez said. “She always put her kids first, and the same thing happened with her grandkids” as she became involved with their lives.
Gomez, 89, died Feb. 6 after breaking her hip in a fall.
Gomez, a younger child among 13, was raised on acreage that is now the Oakwell Farms Dairy parking lot on Fredericksburg Road.
Her father worked at the now-defunct Prassel Manufacturing Co. building staircases for homes in Monte Vista, but still times were hard.
Gomez began collecting dolls as an adult because she “never got to have one as a little girl,” Steven Gomez said. “She told me the little girl across the street used to get a doll every Christmas, but they were lucky if they got a few tamales.”
Attending what was then San Antonio Vocational and Technical High School, Gomez studied cosmetology and was working to save up to attend cosmetology school after graduation when she met her future husband.
“When they began talking about marriage, she quit her job,” Steven Gomez said. “My dad … believed my mom should stay at home.”
Though her husband had handled the bills, money and maintenance matters while alive, Gomez had no trouble transitioning to the head of the household after his death.
“My mom handled everything like a champ,” Steven Gomez recalled.
Caring for her grandchildren whenever possible, Gomez was especially thrilled when her son and his wife had twin boys.
“You could see the glow on her face,” Steven Gomez recalled.
Olivia S. Gomez
Born: Oct. 31, 1927, San Antonio
Died: Feb. 6, 2017, San Antonio
Preceded by: Husband Charles Mario Gomez; parents Enrique and Suzanna Sanchez; three granddaughters; 11 siblings.
Survived by: Sons Charles M. Gomez Jr., Edward R. Gomez and daughter-in-law Irma, Steven G. Gomez and daughter-in-law Barbara; daughter Beatrice I. Penn and son-in-law Monty; 12 grandchildren; 21 great-grandchildren; and a sister.
Services: Visitation at 8:30 a.m., service at 9:30 a.m. today at Porter Loring Mortuaries, 1101 McCullough Ave., followed by burial in San Fernando Cemetery No. 2, 746 Castroville Road.
Retiring from Twain in 1988, Gomez continued caring for her grandchildren into her 70s.
She also enjoyed gardening.
“She cut her own grass … would often plant roses and shrubbery,” Steven Gomez said.
mheidbrink@express-news.net
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