Dale City woman has wit and compassion at 91

"Look at me in that picture."

"Why what's wrong with it?"

"See how my cheek is poking out? I was trying to stick my tongue out at you."

Such was the exchange between Providencia Gonzalez and her daughter Lydia as they looked at pictures taken of Providencia at the Virginia Women of History event held in March.

Chosen as one of the eight women honored during National Women's History month, 91-year-old Providencia, or 'Provi,' has been a pioneer of compassion toward others and selflessness, event coordinators said. But around daughters Lydia Gonzalez and Jeannie Ibanez Gonzalez, she retains every bit of the sharp humor and wit that she's had since she was 16.

"When we [Jeannie and I] were growing up, there were always lots of music, family and close friends around us," Lydia says. "Our house was rarely empty."

"Never once in our youth did it occur to us to say 'No, I'm not going to do that' to our mother. We had discipline and strictness. But it was done in a joyful and loving manner," Jeannie adds.

"I was strict, but didn't go overboard. And I'm very proud of my two daughters," says Provi.

Born in 1917 in Puerto Rico, Providencia moved to New York City on May 24, 1933, to continue her studies in nursing at St. Luke's hospital. A job at the hospital materialized as her schooling progressed, and shortly thereafter, her husband.

"My husband was visiting a patient I was tending to when we first met. I remember being so mad at that patient, who was perfectly healthy and walking all over the place. But the moment he saw me, he acted helpless and asked me to get him water. I told him that there were only three nurses on staff that day, we were extremely busy, and I didn't have time to get him water if he was able to walk and get it himself. My husband later told me that if he had known my temper was like that, he wouldn't have married me.

"But come 1935, we ended up getting married anyway," she said.

The fiery spirit actually goes hand in hand with a bottomless desire to give back to people and the community. Despite living through the Depression and World War II, Provi still found ways to help

others as she always had.

"When I was about 9 years old, there was a very ill woman living near my house in Puerto Rico. She didn't have much money, and I knew she needed food. So, when I would come home from school for lunch, I would rush into the kitchen and wrap up my food and a cup of coffee and go to give it to her.

"I would then go back to school with just a small slice of bread to munch on, but I was so full from the happi-ness I felt from helping her. To this day, if I know someone doesn't have enough to eat, it's like a knife in my heart."

Those early days of giving started her on a path that led Provi to reach out and help women, especially within the Hispanic community. Through a wide range of job experiences which included factory management positions, radio broadcasting, fashion designing and, more recently managing the Dale City local farmers' market, she found a way to help others during every phase of her life.

During earlier times, Provi founded the Golden Needle, a women's support group of seamstresses in New York. She created fund raisers, organized dances to raise countless amounts of money for charitable causes and was active in political campaigns.

After her move to Dale City in 1979, Provi didn't waste a moment getting involved with the closest Catholic church and in no time was involved with collecting, organizing and delivering food to the homebound.

"My mother always worked hard," Lydia says. "Even during tough times, she and my father managed to work and get by, no handouts ever. But despite all that hard work, she was still active in fundraising and the community"

Supported in her endeavors as much by her late husband as her two daughters, Provi never let them forget for a moment that she still had an active role in their lives.

"My Dad was a very good looking, charming man," Lydia says.

"At one time, when he was working at the prestigious Les Artises building in New York, the ABC studios were just being opened up near there and Barbara Walters had asked him to be her right hand," Jeannie says.

"She [Barbara Walters] had called the house once asking for my husband," Provi says. "I told her he was busy. Then I hung up."

Even as a survivor of cervical cancer, Provi found yet another way to turn a negative into a positive. During her illness, she noticed that very little if any printed information handed out by hospitals was written in Spanish, despite a growing Hispanic population in America. So, she founded an organization with three of her friends that created a way for this to be possible with Corazones Contra El Cancer.

"It was frustrating for me," Provi says. "Even though I can read English fluently, I knew many Spanish speaking people could not, and the information I got at the hospital was important for everyone to under-stand."

Through a life that has led her through countless memories and unforgettable events, Provi always kept her zest alive by pursuing her passion and not being afraid of what lay around the corner.

"My mother is an inspiration to women. She has such a zest for life, so much that she wears me out some-times," Lydia says.

"You don't know some of the things I had to go through," Provi says. "But you can't feel sorry for yourself. You keep going. You have to try and never say no to something new. Otherwise, if you don't try it, you'll never find out for yourself."