ESPERANZA VALDES, 1916-2003: Esperanza Valdes and her husband founded and ran First Spanish Baptist Church for about 30 years.
By MARTY CLEAR
Published November 7, 2003
NORTHEAST MACFARLANE - In a lot of ways, Esperanza Valdes was a simple woman. She wasn't well-educated, she never had a career and she delighted in the quiet pleasures of everyday life. But she adored her home and family.
"She loved her family fiercely," said her daughter, Hope Pulido. "She lived on MacDill Avenue, across the street from MacFarlane Park. Her greatest joy was to do the dishes and look out on that panoramic view of the park."
Mrs. Valdes lived in Tampa for about 80 years and was especially devoted to needy people in the Ybor City area. She died a week ago today (Oct. 31, 2003) after a two-year struggle with Alzheimer's disease. She was 87.
Born in Key West in 1916, she came to Tampa in the early 1920s with her family. Her father had died, and her mother came to Tampa to work in a cigar factory.
In 1933, at a cotillion in Ballast Point, Esperanza met her future husband, Eusebio "Chico" Valdes. They married two years later.
Mr. Valdes was a barber and for many years owned and operated Chico's Barber Shop, first on MacDill Avenue and Bay-to-Bay Boulevard and later on Howard Avenue just north of Bayshore Boulevard.
He made his living as a barber, but he and his wife devoted their lives to God. Together they founded First Spanish Baptist Church, on Columbus Drive just east of Nebraska Avenue. Mr. Valdes, who died in 1993, was the pastor.
The couple ran the church for about 30 years until the 1980s. Mrs. Valdes worked countless hours helping poorer members of the congregation, her daughter said.
But her two children - Hope and her older brother, Herman - were always her priority. Although the family wasn't wealthy, they insisted on traveling and exposing them to culture.
Mrs. Valdes wanted a better life for her kids, largely because she had a difficult childhood. When she lived in Key West, her family had to gather rainwater in cisterns because the island had no running water.
"She wasn't an educated woman, but she believed in education," Mrs. Pulido said. "She didn't know about art or music, but she made sure I learned classical music, and she took us to all the museums in New York. Even though she wasn't an immigrant, she had that immigrant mentality, that this is America and you can be anything you want to be."
Her efforts helped her children personally and professionally. Mrs. Pulido has been an electrologist in Tampa for more than 30 years, and her brother was the head basketball coach at Bayshore Christian School and later at Robinson High School.
For several years, the children lived with their three cousins, whom Mrs. Valdes raised after they became orphans.
"She was your old-fashioned, high-morals woman," she said, "But she wasn't a strict mother. She was very soft-spoken."
It's her mother's influence, Mrs. Pulido said, that has led her to work with Tampa's homeless population through the University Church of God.
"She was a beautiful woman," she said. "She was strikingly beautiful, and her inner beauty was evident as soon as she spoke."
Besides her two children and their spouses, Mrs. Valdes is survived by six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
