I have always seen with favor the benefits that people’s migrations usually provide, both internally and from other nationalities. For the rest, this has been the history of humanity and we are becoming more and more globalized.
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Yes, a natural inclination of man has been to transhumance. Now, the original population of Ibero-America has been polyformic. At the end of the 15th century, the Spanish discoverers began to arrive, who later became interested in bringing labor from African towns. Later, they visited our geography, individuals passing through or settling, European families, in different places.
THEY ARRIVED IN LA GUAJIRA AND CESAR
The territories that today make up the departments of La Guajira and Cesar welcomed people from that continent, disembarking in the seaports of the Atlantic coast, especially Cartagena and Barranquilla, and also through those of La Guajira.
This is how the Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italians, Dutch, etc., etc. arrived to these lands, after colonial times themselves.
The English and Germans arrived, rather, through those of Cartagena and Barranquilla, and especially, since the two world wars.
How many good benefits for Valledupar and its region have since then been provided by those migrants, whose Castilianized surnames are now part of our family environment.
To write part of this chronicle, I use some historical findings, made by the civic association of Valledupar, Aviva, whose motherhood corresponds to our never well-considered country, Dr. Alba Luz Luque de Lommel, whom I have referred to in a past writing of mine, the one who had a calendar for the year 2023 published, remembering the exemplary life of twelve pioneering men in the feat of economic and social development of this region. He only remembers twelve, because twelve are the months of the year. But as we know, there are more, local and foreign.
Thanks to that work by Aviva, I share with my readers some information, for example, about Mr. Alois Vincent Gebauer Hanel (hereinafter Mr. Luis). Born in Czechoslovakia, when this country was part of the great Germany, just beginning of the 20th century. He planned to travel to Colombia and arrived in the city of Barranquilla around the year 1920, and since by then the river route of the Magdalena River was available, he went up through it to the port of La Dorada and by road he arrived in Bogotá, where You have the opportunity to work in agroindustrial companies.
After some time he made the decision to seek other horizons and descended from Bogotá, again to La Dorada, and now knowing the route of the river, he settled in Gamarra, then in El Banco, then in Chimichagua and finally, he settled in Barranquilla. .
Among his experiences in the interior of the country, he did not neglect his heart and was introduced to a beautiful woman from Boyacá, in the town of Belén de Cerinza, named Visitación (Carmen) Alvarez, whom he married in 1943. His children They were Federico Guillermo, Hans Otto and Luis Alberto.
During the Second World War he worked as a mechanic at the Hotel El Prado in Barranquilla, In the company of his son Otto, and due to the chances of that war, he had to escape from Barranquilla, with such good luck for him and for Valledupar that he arrived here, where he finally planted his family. He had some financial savings that allowed him to buy a 1947 Chevrolet cargo car and he began to work, along with his family, repairing agricultural machinery.
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He quickly acquired prestige for his good work and responsibility, in such a way that he soon managed to purchase a 15-hectare land, secured by the landowners Don Pepe and Don Celso Domingo Castro, whose acquisition document was prepared by the jurist Ovidio Palmera Baquero. That land, then rural and now urban, is located near what we call the La 15 gasoline pump. There he established his agro-industrial workshop under the name Taller Los Alemanes and raised some cattle, for the benefit of the ranchers and farmers of the provinces of Padilla and Valledupar.
YESTERDAY’S ACTIVITIES
As a child I remember those noble people and their prosperous workshop, in the company of my father, Hospicio López Baquero, prominent rancher. That workshop still preserves its glories in the survival of his grandson, Otto Gebauer Bruno, whose facilities are located at kilometer 12 of the Valledupar to Valencia de Jesús road.
Hans Otto Gebauer Alvares married Marietta Bruno Rolón from Barranquilla, of Italian descent, and they had Giovanny, Evelin, Otto, Grethel, Fabiana Gussepina, who married my son, Rodrigo López Aponte (surnames found out in other writings of mine) and fathered Daniela and Alejandra, whose status as granddaughters I share with my wife, Josefina Aponte López.
Both attended preschool at the Fundación Colegio Bilingüe, in Valledupar, and high school at the Gimnasio del Norte school, in Valledupar. Daniela graduated as a doctor from the Juan N. Corpas University Foundation, in Bogotá. She did her rural year as a doctor at the Rosario Pumarejo de López Hospital in Valledupar and later, she worked as a gynecologist and obstetrician at the Cesar Clinic in Valledupar.
As a descendant of his great-grandfather, Don Luis, he has sometimes visited the country of his paternal ancestor, and for 3 years he has resided there, in the northern city of Ittelkill, pursuing specialized medical studies in gynecology and obstetrics, currently She carries out studies and internships at an institute called Ärztehaus, frauenarztpraxis Doris Book, in the aforementioned city. Alejandra is about to graduate as a sociologist at the Popular University of Cesar, on September 29.
OTHER FAMILIES
As for other relationships by affinity, I must bring up the Gnecco Cerchiario family (Castilianized). Some members of these surnames arrived in Colombia through the seaports of La Guajira, around the 19th century, and some went to Valledupar, Santa Marta and others to Bogotá.
His ancestors came from two Italian regions, characterized by their merchant nature, favored by their seafaring traditions, to the north, Genoa and Venice, and to the south, Puglia and Calabria, up and down, connected by the Adriatic Sea.
Therefore, it can be assumed that some people from those regions found it interesting to decide to travel to distant lands and that is the reason why they are part of our nationality today. During the calends of the 13th century, a countryman of his, Marco Polo, ventured to travel through the distant lands of the East, along the different routes of the Silk Road, so called later, whose stories are compiled in his book ‘The Travels of Marcopolo’.
In this way, he had set the precedents of an expert navigator and walker. But in addition, it is necessary to say that there is no Italian who is not a politician and his Florentine countryman, Nicolas Machiavelli, considered the most acute political philosopher of the Renaissance, wrote at the beginning of the 16th century, his book, ‘The Prince’, considered the best written plans from all eras.
For the family relationship that interests me, I take as head of the family Mr. Lucas Gnecco Navas, whose wife was Elvia Cerchar Gómez, whom I always treated with respect and who formed a large, hard-working and political family.
ORIGIN OF THE GNECCO
Don Lucas Gnecco Navas fathered Miguel Gnecco Carrillo with Mrs. Gala Dominga Carrillo Levete, who made a home with Mrs. Genith Cerchiario Diaz and they had four children, Lucas Miguel, Mayela, José Jorge (RIP) and Juan Jaime, who married my daughter, Margarita Lucía López Aponte and her only daughter, Paula Margarita Gnecco López, was born.
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Lawyer, whose age matches the century of the Nuestra Señora del Rosario University, member and leader of the Wayuu indigenous reservation of Trupiogacho, Barrancas, La Guajira. From a young age she showed interest in the social sphere and has been able to carry out related activities throughout the department of La Guajira.
It is currently linked to the La Guajira Public Services Company ESEGUA SA ESP. In the month of January she will begin specializing in state contracting and Social Leadership Management. Her thesis was carried out in the Wayuu Regulatory System.
MY THREE GRANDDAUGHTERS
I ask and wish my three granddaughters not to stop training in their respective professions and with them to honestly serve humanity.
I have two grandchildren, reaching the age of 11, with a magnificent contribution of Santander-German ancestry. Older people, I will also dedicate a written memory to them, to commit them to the society where they live.
BY RODRIGO LÓPEZ BARROS/ SPECIAL FOR EL PILÓN.
