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MARTY CLEARAn attentive mother who was known for her beautiful voice, she was outgoing and loved to help retail customers.
WEST TAMPA - Evangelina Delgado had a beautiful voice from a young age. She loved to tell the story of the day when a door-to-door salesman heard her singing while she was doing her chores.
"He told her mother, "If you don't get that girl some professional training, you're really missing an opportunity,"' said her son, Adolph Rodriguez.
In a fairy tale ending, the salesman would have been the friend of a Broadway producer who made Delgado a star.
The real story had just as happy an ending, though not as glamorous. Her singing never took her far from Tampa, but led her to her husband and family.
Her early years were difficult. Her father died when she was 3 years old, and she left school after the fourth grade to help care for her eight brothers and sisters while her mother worked.
When she was older, she worked in retail stores around Tampa. She spent much of her career at Haber's, a popular women's clothing store.
"She had a very outgoing personality, and she loved working with the customers," her son said. "She also had a real eye for design and she liked to help them put their outfits together."
Like a lot of young Hispanics back then, she spent a lot of time at Centro Asturiano. She and some friends started a musical theater group that performed concerts and operettas in Centro Asturiano's theater.
"From what I've heard, it was very professional," her son said. "It was a very major part of the theater scene in Tampa at the time."
She ended up marrying one member of the group, a cigar worker named Gisleno Rodriguez. They settled in West Tampa, not far from where she had grown up, and had a son, Adolph.
Perhaps because she had had so little education herself, Mrs. Rodriguez was adamant that her only child would thrive in school. The family spoke Spanish at home, but she taught Adolph some English.
"Back then, if you didn't speak English, you couldn't go to school," Adolph Rodriguez said. "It wasn't like today. My first language was Spanish and I remember her struggling to teach me at least the basics of English because she wanted to be sure I got an education."
Many year later, Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez divorced. Mrs. Rodriguez continued her retail career, moving into management at Haber's. She eventually remarried and became Mrs. Pedro Ayendes.
Despite a hard childhood, Mrs. Ayendes always had a sunny disposition, her son said. If she worried, it never showed in her face.
"She aged very gracefully," he said. "She always looked 15 years younger than she really was."
Her underlying toughness became apparent last year when she suffered a massive stroke at age 95. She moved into a St. Petersburg nursing home but recovered rapidly.
In January, she fell while walking on the grounds of the nursing home and suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and cracked vertebra. She died last Friday (May 7, 2004) after spending several months in and out of consciousness. She was 96.
"She was a wonderful mother," Adolph Rodriguez said. "She was very attentive, and she showered me with all of her attention and love."
Besides her son, Mrs. Ayendes is survived by two sisters, Obdulia Sarabia and Viola Beiro, three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.