Alfredo González Gutiérrez

Alfredo was born in Bustamante (Campoo de Yuso) in November 1931, months after the formal end of the Spanish Civil War. Bustamante is located on a small hill and was transformed by the waters of the Ebro reservoir into an isthmus connecting it to the La Lastra peninsula after the floodplains were inundated. This land was crossed on foot to collect coal, or it was used by his father, Epifanio, to travel to work at the "Cristalería Española" glass factory in Arija (Burgos). His mother, Dionisia, originally from Monegro (4 km from Bustamante), worked the land, tended livestock, and raised her daughter and her eight children; Alfredo was the ninth to be born. The war left its mark on Alfredo, as he remembers being searched at gunpoint when he was only six years old, and he suffered for three years without his father and three brothers, who were imprisoned for "ill will." The post-war period arrived in Campoo de Yuso and settled in for many years, during which his father engaged in the black market trade of flour along a route between Valderredible and Reinosa. Alfredo studied at the village school, alongside students from neighboring villages, with a “very good teacher,” Teresa, with whom he remained until he was 13 years old. At that point, he became his mother's right-hand man at home because his brother Félix fell ill with pleurisy. At 21, he did his military service in the Basque Country, and for almost two years he served as a corporal, in charge of guarding “ships full of ammunition” in the Iron Belt of Mount Munarrikolanda, between the municipalities of Sopela and Berango, which served as a major defensive complex for Bilbao. His youth, amidst record players and parties, had its best dance in La Costana with Emilia, with whom he began a courtship that culminated in a wedding held in Servillejas on August 25, 1956, when he was 24 years old, surrounded by family. They began their new life living in Servillejas for seven years, after which they resided in cabins in Bustamante. Between 1957 and 1972, he witnessed the birth of his four sons and daughter in Servillejas, and finally, in 1976, when his youngest son was four years old, they moved to their current home, across from the church in Bustamante. In this church of San Pelayo, he practiced his faith, received his First Communion, and selflessly repaired the wooden pews. He also forged a friendship with the Sisters of Charity that has lasted almost two decades. Alfredo's working life was very active and varied. He says his first job was at age 16, "in the work crews at the Arijas glass factory," loading and unloading sand and coal alongside other young men. The following year, he worked as a laborer building the short-lived Noguerol Bridge—a road viaduct that connected the towns of Arija and La Población—which collapsed 53 days after its inauguration in August 1952. He also worked in quarries and on road construction, for example, in La Costana. In addition, he was a construction laborer building apartments in Reinosa and worked "felling pine trees" in the mountains of Corrales, Las Caldas, Bustasur, and Silió. Among his last jobs, in the late 1970s, he worked as an orderly for six months at the Reinosa outpatient clinic. After a complex operation and nearly six months of recovery in a Cantabrian nursing home, he retired at 40, his health marked by the serious workplace accident. In his 66 years of marriage to Emilia, they have weathered difficult times, such as Alfredo's 17 surgeries, as well as his wife's illness, during which he took on the household chores, about which he recounts many anecdotes. After almost five decades, they reside in Bustamante and continue their traditions regarding farming and raising animals for their own consumption, for example, the age-old practice of pig slaughter, which he performed for the first time at 15. The village—Alfredo affirms—"has changed," because "before there were 30 young men, and now there are only 2 or 3 people over 60." At 91, he has a large family, "34 in total," including his four children and daughter, ten grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. And together they celebrated the city council's tribute to his ninetieth birthday, because for Alfredo, "possessions are worthless; what matters is unity." Legado Cantabria is a production of Fundación PEM.