Ana Patrício and Francisco Adolfo Gomes
Ana Patrício is the daughter of anarchist Manuel Patrício, a miner from Aljustrel, a union leader, founder of the Aljustrel Mining Union, and a key driver of several mining struggles and strikes. Her grandfather, brother, and uncle were also miners. The latter was Valentim Adolfo João, also an anarchist and founder of the Mining Union, arrested by the PVDE/PIDE and exiled to Spain. Her father and uncle had been arrested in 1927 for promoting the struggles in the mines of São Domingos.
Ana Patrício is dedicated to studying the history and struggles of the miners of Aljustrel and São Domingos, which intersect with her family’s history. She is the author of Miners of Aljustrel, Documentary Collection of their Organization and Struggle (volumes 1 and 2) and Archive of My Thought: Memories of a Mining Worker, in which she transcribes her father’s testimony. At the Aljube Museum, she told the story of her father and uncle and shared her firsthand memories of the struggles and living and working conditions of the miners of Aljustrel and São Domingos.
At 15, she became an employee of the Aljustrel Miners’ Consumer Cooperative. She founded a school, taught, worked as a sales clerk, and completed a general course in Commerce and, later, Economics. She was a member of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and a member of the Lopes Graça Choir.
Francisco Adolfo Gomes is the son of Valentim Adolfo João, an anarchist miner and union leader, a central figure in the struggles in the Aljustrel and São Domingos mines. His father was exiled between 1932 and 1938 in Spain, from where Francisco was smuggled to be born in Portugal, then immediately returned to Spain where he was registered and baptized. He would later accompany his mother and father as they settled in Setúbal, remaining in hiding. Like his father, he used a false name. Undocumented, he was unable to attend school until he was 17, when he was finally registered under his real name.
His father and uncle, Manuel Patrício, were arrested in 1927. Later, his father would be accused of involvement in the assassination attempt on Salazar’s life in 1937 and imprisoned in Setúbal in 1949, spending time in the Aljube and Peniche prisons until his release in 1964, his health deteriorating.
Francisco Adolfo Gomes visited the Aljube Museum to discuss his father and uncle’s story and share his firsthand memories of the struggles and living and working conditions of the miners of Aljustrel and São Domingos.
Date of Collection: 17.05.2017
Keywords: Aljustrel Miners, Family, Unions, Clandestine, Prison, Peniche, Women, Class Struggle.
