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Dia de los Muertos in Glen Park

November 21, 2015 by Elizabeth Weise

7
Day of the Dead offerings. Photo by Marian Dalare

Story and photos Murray Schneider

Dia de los Muertos, the pre-Columbian Mexican festival celebrating those who have left us, came to Glen Park for seven days in the form of a dozen ofrendas, offerings created by relatives and friends that remember departed loved ones

From November 1 through Noveber 8, Chenery Street’s Modernpast hosted the displays in Ric Lopez’s shop.

At the closing festivities, Lopez stood by his own presentation, explaining its significance.

 

Photo 5 – Peter Wolff and Ric Lopez – Modernpast

5
Peter Wolff and Ric Lopez, Modernpast

“This offering is an ongoing gift to our ancestors, but also to those present,” said Lopez, who familial mementoes highlight events from his mother’s life and that of Peter Wolff, his partner’s mother.

Lopez pointed to a grouping of assembled beans and chocolate.

“Our two mothers never met, but one loved beans the other chocolate,” he said. “Always generous, my mother claimed ‘If you have a bean, always cut it in half.’”

 

2
Janine Rosales, pictured before her ofrenda honoring her father, Edgard Rosales (1929-1968)

Mia Gonzalez, formerly of Encanta Gallery in the Mission District, curated the seven-day event with Lopez. She assembled San Franciscans from different ethnicities to come to Glen Park and exhibit their family possessions.

“Next year we’ll begin earlier,” said Gonzalez, appraising the collections. “We want to use it as an opportunity to teach children.”

“To my knowledge this is the first time such a Latino cultural event has come to Glen Park,” added Lopez.

 

1
Marian Dalare, pictured before her ofrenda honoring her father, Santiago Dalare (1906 – 2006)

“The Mexican Dia de Los Muertos gives honor to those who have come before,” said Gonzalez, “and is also inclusive. Artists who shared may have done so earlier in the privacy of their own homes, but never before publically.”

The Day of the Dead is traced to southern Mexico and meso-America, millennia before the Spanish conquistadors arrived from Europe. Originally scheduled in summer, the indigenous peoples festival moved to October 31 through November 2 to coincide with “All Soul’s Day.” In addition to household ofrendas, family members make pilgrimages to loved-ones gravesites, offering gifts, leaving possessions and recalling humorous stories.

Family heirlooms filled an ofrenda next to Ric Lopez’s alter.

10           “My father’s name was Santiago Dalere and he came from the Philippines to Hawaii, then to Salinas and eventually to Glen Park in 1957,” said Marian Dalere, who owns Dalere’s Beauty Shop across the street from Modernpast.

Dalere’s ofrenda was an assortment of sentimental objects, gathered from years living in Glen Park.

“My father worked as a custodian at the Fairmont Hotel, and he loved sitting in our patio surrounded by his chickens,” said Dalere, pointing to an array of fruits he’d grown in his Chenery Street backyard. “We had apple and pear trees, and he loved to cook using mustard, figs and beans.”

“He’d bring his veggies to my mother’s beauty shop,” she said. “He was so proud of his farming and so glad to get away from Salinas pesticides.”

The toxins had no adverse impact, as Santiago Dalere lived to be 100.

Gary Fusco standing by his ofrenda, honoring his mother Paulina Mercurio Fusco.
Gary Fusco standing by his ofrenda, honoring his mother Paulina Mercurio Fusco.

“When he wasn’t gardening, my dad would go to Muni pier and fish,” Dalere continued, gesturing to a nook in her ofrenda festooned with fishing rods.

The ofrenda next to Dalere’s belonged to Janine Rosales who lives in the Excelsior and who graduated from McAteer High School.

“Papa lived on Molimo on Mount Davidson and owned a furniture store at 17th and Mission Streets,” said Rosales, about Nicaraguan Edgard Rosales, who played percussion in the Fairmont Hotel’s Latin bands. “He played conga drums with Cal Tjader, loved dominoes and practiced with clave sticks.”

Rosales’ ofrenda boasted a photo of a healthy canine, whose shortened dog-years matched that of Edgard Rosales, who passed after only 39 years.

“My father named his collie Mambo, after Tjader’s Modern Mambo Quintet,” Rosales explained. “After papa left, Mambo died of a broken heart.”

If Mia Gonzalez needed proof that Dia de los Muertos embraced cultural ecumenicalism, she needn’t have looked further than Gary Fusco, who stood next to an offering to his mother, Paulina Murcurio Fusco.

“My mother was a Sicilian and loved her kitchen,” said Fusco, whose 25-year old daughter Gabrielle helped fashion their ofrenda, a trove of baking pans, cheese graters, rolling pin, wine bottles, cloth napkins and a cookbook. “Creating this alter is like bringing my mother back and remembering her.”

Latina Anita de Lucio moved closer to Fusco’s ofrenda, glancing at her own alter.

“My father always made the point that we must present ourselves professionally,” she said. “This week has been a forum for expression, a gathering that brings us from grief to creation.”

In her turn, Janine Rosales couldn’t have agreed more, making her initial foray into public expression.

“For someone who wasn’t sure,” she said, smiling, “I think I did a good job.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Glen Park Association is at Glen Park Greenway.
12 hours ago
Glen Park Association

Saturday’s Glen Park Greenway Work Party is Cancelled.

“I’m very sorry to say that
we have cancelled our Work Party for this Saturday July 12, along with all organized volunteer activity on the Greenway until further notice.
As you may have read in the news, our fiscal sponsor, San Francisco Parks Alliance (SFPA), has shut itself down. Just as SFPA has shut itself down, the Greenway, as an organized part of SFPA, has also been “shut down.” We are busy looking for a suitable alternative fiscal sponsor that is willing to replace SFPA. That search is going well but it is a slow process. We had hoped to find temporary ways to enable the Greenway project to function responsibly as a community activity without a fiscal sponsor. Sadly, despite our best efforts and the help of many others in Glen Park, we have failed. That is why we must cancel our Saturday Work Party and discontinue future work parties and other organized volunteer activity on the Greenway (like weeding and watering) until further notice. We recognize that the Greenway is public open space and that the organizers of the Greenway project have no control over the activities of you or of anyone else on the Greenway. However, if you do venture onto the Greenway to satisfy your urge for outdoor recreation, please be aware that your activity is not in any way organized or sanctioned by the organizers of the Glen Park Greenway project. I’m well aware of the efforts that many of the
Greenway’s supporters are making to get the Greenway organized with a new fiscal sponsor and I’m confident that this will be arranged within weeks or perhaps a few months.
However long it takes, I will contact you with news of our progress.
Many thanks for all that you do for the Greenway.”

Nicholas Dewar, volunteer Project Director

#glenparkgreenway #glenparksf #sanfrancisco @rafaelmandelmand8 @danielluriesf @crosstowntrail
#crosstowntrail #sfparksalliance #publicspace #nature
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Wonder what’s stopping just organizing it separate from that non-profit. It seems like the volunteers largely come from Glen Park.

Glen Park Association is at Laidley Street SFO.
4 days ago
Glen Park Association

It was a beautiful day for the annual #july4th celebration on Laidley street!

📷: Photos courtesy of Michael Waldstein

#glenparksf #sanfrancisco #laidley
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It was a beautiful day for the annual #july4th celebration on Laidley street! 

📷: Photos courtesy of Michael Waldstein 

#glenparksf #sanfrancisco #laidley
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