Rosemarie Gomez, who died Saturday at age 100, is remembered as the first Hispanic woman to serve on the East Chicago City Council.
Gomez took her husband Jesse’s seat on the council after he died in 1979 and was subsequently elected to the position.
Her son Jesse Gomez and daughter Adrienne Gomez said she was very involved in the community and knew a lot of people.
“She was very involved politically, obviously, because of my dad. It wore off on her,” Adrienne said.
“When my dad passed and she transitioned into his position, it was pretty easy for her,” Adrienne said. That was when Bob Pastrick was mayor.
“Back then, the council was a pretty strong unit, and they at times would oppose Pastrick. A lot of people thought the machine ran smoothly without opposition, but there was some opposition back then,” Jesse said.
“She was a progressive. She was probably a women’s libber before women’s lib became popular,” Jesse said. “She was at times ‘good trouble’ before that term became popular as well.”
Rosemarie wanted women to have their place at the table, to be represented at every level, Jesse said.
“She had a very easy-going temperament. She was really well liked,” Adrienne said.
She recalled a cousin saying he rode his bike by as a young boy, watching her tend plants in her garden. People would often ask her for advice, Adrienne said. “She was always kind to them” and would offer them flowers.
“Her body language was very confident, and yet she was very approachable,” Jesse said. “It was so easy for people to get along with her.”
Lisa Salinas-Matonovich’s mother, Mary Esther Lopez, and Rosemarie were good friends. Salinas-Matonovich treated Rosemarie as a substitute mother after Lopez died.
“I loved Rosemarie Gomez. She was a wonderful woman,” she said. “I was closer to her after my mom because she was the last person to see my mom at the nursing home before my mom died.”
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Salinas-Matonovich showed Rosemarie some old photographs of Rosemarie and Lopez at Lake Michigan. “She knew who was in those pictures.”
“She was an amazing woman,” Salinas-Matonovich said. “Every time I went to visit, I felt like I was talking to my mother.”
A week ago, Rosemarie called out for Mary Esther. “When my mother passed away, she was talking to dead people. I said, where are you, Mom? She said she was in between.” That must have been where Rosemarie was, Salinas-Matonovich said.
Jesse sent a video from Thanksgiving, with Rosemarie blessing her and her family. “Just when I stop crying because she’s gone, he sends me this video.”
“I’ve often said that mothers are God’s angels here on Earth,” Jesse said. “My mom was really an angel. She was somebody that people in the community looked up to.”
Rosemarie was born Jan. 14, 1926, in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico, the eldest child of Gordon Ellsworth Clarkson and Emilia Hernandez. She migrated to the United States with her parents at age 6.
She attended East Chicago public schools as a young girl. In 1939, she portrayed the Statue of Liberty during the Union Benefica Mexicana’s Mexican Independence Day parade. The next year, at age 14, she became the UBM’s youngest queen “Reina de las Fiestas Patrias,” serving in that capacity for five years during World War II.
During that war, her family endured economic hardship, so Rosemarie left school to work at Inland Steel’s No. 3 coke plant. Despite this pause, Rosemarie graduated from East Chicago Washington High School in 1947.
She worked for Illinois Bell Telephone Co., where she met her husband Jesse Gomez on the train to Chicago. Following a three-year courtship, they married on her birthday in 1950. They remained married until her husband’s death in 1979.
In 1959, Rosemarie became a U.S. citizen so she could cast her first vote in 1963 for her husband, who was elected councilman representing the 6th District.
Last year, the 3800 block of Grand Boulevard was given the honorary name “Jesse and Rosemarie Gomez Way.” Rosemarie was there, surrounded by family, friends, neighbors and elected officials.
Among her jobs was serving as an English as a Second Language tutor for the East Chicago school system. “She could speak just the most beautiful Spanish and the most clear and understandable English,” Jesse said.
When Rosemarie replaced her husband on the City Council upon his death, she became the first Hispanic female to hold public office in the city.
Rosemarie was an active member of many civic organizations and received numerous awards.
Visitation will be 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday in East Chicago at Fife Funeral Home. A funeral Mass is set for 10 a.m. Friday at St. Patrick Church.
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Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.