Clara Gonzales

CLARA STANEK GONZALES Feb. 4, 1938 – July 1, 2023

Clara Stanek Gonzales, longtime resident of Santa Fe and Los Alamos, passed away July 1, 2023, from breast cancer.

She was born Feb. 4, 1938, the first daughter of Joseph B. Stanek and Angeline Laurence in Bolivar, MO, on a farm located in the southwestern farm belt of Missouri. The doctor who helped Clara come into the world was paid for her home delivery with 10 hens.

Being the eldest of five children, she learned early that farm life entails a great deal of work, and she lived the many changes in farming that took place in the early to mid 1900s; she recalled her dad selling their mules (the Jack for $500), and buying a team of horses he used to work until they were sent overseas with the soldiers.

Her father bought a John Deere tractor that you could hear popping clear across the country, and he worked from sunup till sunset. Clara learned to drive the stick shift tractor at 4 years of age, and she drove it to pick up bundles and haul them to the threshing machine owned by her father; and the combine and bailing machines. The family had a Grade A milking barn, and raised all the grains to feed the cattle. She fondly recalled her 18 years on the farm, and watching for the big yellow school bus to show itself on a far distant hill, then run pell-mell to dress, and be waiting when it stopped in front of their house.

For 12 years of schooling, she and her brother and sisters rode 28 miles round-trip each day on the school bus, and said this is why she vowed never to marry a farmer. Immediately upon graduation from Marion C. Early High School in Polk County Missouri, in June of 1956, Clara joined the Women’s Army Corp. She attended basic training in Ft. McClelland, Alabama, and was soon stationed at Ent Airforce Base working for the North American Air Defense Command Headquarters (NORAD) in Colorado Springs (now the Olympics training center) where she worked as a stenographer. She found the Army to be an easy transition as they let you sleep till 6 a.m., when she had risen at 5 a.m. on the farm.

The Base hosted a sprinkling of each armed force, and Canadian service men and women. She soon met a tall, slender, dark complected sailor from Santa Fe, NM, with a grace and charisma who checked off many of the plusses on her list; and he asked her to marry him.

After their military service, Clara and Juan lived in Bolivar for a time, but eventually settled in Santa Fe. Clara worked as a bookkeeper for Santa Fe Book and Stationery Company, the New Mexico State Highway Department, at Don Juan’s Beauty Salon, and the Guadalupe Credit Union. Juan and Clara owned and operated the Don Juan’s Beauty Salon for many years in Santa Fe (1963-1967 in Solana Center, and from 1967-1982 at 1372 Cerrillos Road).

She and Juan also lived near family in Clearwater, SC, and Los Alamos. They were married for 59 years, until his passing in 2017. Clara enjoyed playing softball, volleyball, the piano (Juan would sing as she played), returning to Bolivar to visit family and friends, telling stories, tracing the family tree, homemade ice cream, and living in conscience that she learned from her studies of the Message to the Men of the New Earth books.

Clara was preceded in death by her husband Juan B. Gonzales; an infant son Johnny Joseph, her parents, her brother Joseph D. Stanek, and sister Joyce Elaine Hogan. Clara and Juan have three children: Deborah M., Diana (Mark) Martinez, John Joseph (aka Juan José) raised in the Casa Solana area of Santa Fe.

They have nine grandchildren: Richard Gonzales, Felisha (Phillip) Romero, Isaac (Sarah) Chavez, Gina Michelle, Juan Miguel (Brianna) and Joseph Michael; Isaac Mark (Niki) Martinez, Catherine Andrea, and Ruben Benjamin; and great grandchildren Jimmy and Hope Aragon, Brooklynn Martinez, Ashaya Hyde, Elijah Joseph Gonzales, Kiana Gonzales, and Priscilla, Rose, Jude, Ruth, and Maria Chavez. Also surviving her are her sister Mary J. Postle of Tyler, TX, and a brother Robert (Cheryl) Stanek of Aiken SC, along with many nieces and nephews, in-laws and outlaws, and “My Girl,” Arlene Garcia who lovingly helped take care of Juan and Clara in their later months. Clara deeply cherished her time in the military, and the VA doctors who cared for her.

A celebration of Clara’s life will be held at 10 a.m. July 28 at the Rivera Funeral Home in Santa Fe, followed by interment with military honors at the Santa Fe National Cemetery, and a reception.

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