Maria Beni Simoes Gomes

She was born Maria Beni Simoes on June 27, 1921 in Bolivia, South America. She loved telling about how her parents gave her the middle name. The name came from the Beni River in Bolivia. Her family had traveled there to visit relatives and to possibly find work and settle. Instead, they decided to sail back to Portugal. Her father then decided to try North America and once there sent for the rest of the family. Maria sailed to America at the age of 15 with her brother Inacio. Maria’s parents purchased a small dress factory in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where the family worked together.

Early in her arrival to America, Maria and her mother, Diolenda, were invited to visit cousins in Fall River, Massachusetts. These cousins were Christians who attended the Assembly of God church. By the time the visit ended, Maria and her mother had accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. As a result, her children were raised as Christians. Later in his life, her husband Eduardo, also accepted the Lord. Our family will forever be grateful for those wonderful Christian cousins.

In the meantime, a young man Eduardo Gomes had been working in upstate New York and was taking evening citizenship classes at a high school in Ossining, New York. There he met Inacio who became Eduardo’s best friend and who happened to tell him about a lovely young lady named Maria Simeos, his sister. They were introduced and in 1941 Maria and Eduardo were married. This marriage brought them a son, Edward, in 1942 and a daughter, Linda, in 1945.

After years of working together in many places, they finally had the opportunity to buy an Italian Restaurant named the “Half Moon”, in Ossining. They were very successful in their business and after nine years they decided to sell it and move to California where several of their friends and relatives lived.

Maria was an amazing person. While still in New York, she managed to drive to beauty school in White Plains daily to become a beautician while still being the main cook at the restaurant, raising two children, and taking care of her family. She had attended school in Portugal for only a few years and claimed that was hard for her. How she learned all those difficult cosmetology terms to pass the state tests with flying colors was an amazing feat.

Maria and her family have lived here in California since 1964. In 1966, her husband developed a brain aneurism and after recovering physically from surgery, he could no longer remember most of this life here in America including loss of the English language he had learned. Maria took care of him for more than thirty years. He had to be watched carefully because of his memory loss. Maria then started her own childcare business to make ends meet and helped raise many children over the years including her three grandchildren- Christina, Cynthia, and Deborah.

Her husband went to be with the Lord in 1994. He had become so weak, the family worried that Maria would not live much longer herself as she took care of him. But, she lived another 19 years after his passing.

So the older we get, we think back and realize how loving and amazing a person our mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother was. She had no special training in being a wife, mother, and grandmother, but she gave it her best. She always put everyone else first before herself. She hardly had any schooling as a child who came from a simple life in a tiny village in Portugal and knew nothing about city life, factories, or restaurant owning. She had never been trained in care giving or nursing yet she excelled at all of those things.

We will never forget the places she took us, the wonderful things she made for us, and the love she showed everyone through all she did throughout her truly amazing life.