By LORA ARCINIEGA AND MARLENE GOMEZ
On May 10, Isabel Odilia Gomez will reach a milestone very few ever see: her 100th birthday.
Born in 1926 to Agapita and Cristobal Gonzales, Gomez was raised on Cabresto Road as the second oldest of six children. Looking back on a century of life, she describes a world that would be unrecognizable to many today.
In her youth, Questa was built around dirt roads and a lifestyle tied directly to the land. She remembers walking through cottonwood fields to collect palitos, or kindling, to keep the family fires burning and at times going to the neighbors house with a tin bucket to select the families ration of food. While she attended school at La Cienega, much of her education happened at home. Under the guidance of her mother and relatives, she learned to bake bread, make tortillas and manage a household.
“Back then, people really leaned on each other,” Gomez said. She recalled a time when neighbors shared everything; if a family butchered a cow, close friends and neighbors had beef to eat.
Life eventually took her to Wyoming with her husband, Virgil Gomez Sr. The couple had nine children: Diane, Virgil Jr., Jenny, Elaine, Glenda, Patsy, Dicke, Marlene and Ronnie. After her husband passed away, Gomez raised her family as a single mother.
She was a woman who did it all. To provide for her nine children, she kept a clean house, tended a vegetable garden and raised chickens and pigs. She also worked outside the home periodically cleaning rooms in Red River.
Her daughter, Marlene Gomez, says her mother’s work ethic never wavered. Though she doesn’t bake as much as she used to, Marlene says her mother would still head straight for the kitchen to start a batch of bread if someone asked.
Beyond her hard work, Gomez is known for her firm stance on respect. She never had a taste for gossip and wouldn’t allow it under her roof. If a conversation turned toward rumors, she had a simple rule: “Not in my house.”
That discipline extended to her health. Marlene noted that her mother never used alcohol or tobacco, preferring a simple Northern New Mexico diet. To this day, she eats beans three times a week, along with meat, potatoes and fresh tortillas.
Today, Gomez is the matriarch of a large family that includes 13 grandchildren, 20 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. She stays busy reading scriptures, solving crossword puzzles and visiting with her family.
While she says her grandparents would be shocked by the “push-button” convenience of modern life, Gomez believes the secret to a long life isn’t complicated. Her advice? Get enough rest, stay busy with your chores, eat your beans and tortillas, and always leave room for the “right amount” of ginger snaps and chocolates.
