Extraordinary family dynamics and deep Bay Area roots characterize the legacy of Morgan Hill resident Timothy Gomes.
His father-in-law, Antonio Ferreira, who recently celebrated his 94th birthday, immigrated to the U.S. in 1959 from the island of Pico, a part of the Archipelago of the Azores, about 900 miles west of Portugal. Antonio settled in Morgan Hill where he milked cows at the old Escobar Dairy on Hill Road between Dunne and Tennant avenues, and where the timeworn barn and buildings still exist.
But it’s Tim’s story that is uncharacteristically unique and perhaps contributes most to his arresting personality.
A number of noteworthy elements about Tim could tell a story. He served in Vietnam for 13 months from 1970 to 1971 and, like most veterans, witnessed events no one should ever have to see. And although he was awarded the Bronze Star in 1970, he is symptomatically modest about it.
“Oh, it’s kind of like employee of the month,” he scoffed when I asked him to elaborate on his medal.
He has also written and published one novel and is working on his second book, a memoir.
Now it may seem strange to choose the title, “Stillborn,” when you sit down to write your memoirs, but the seeming oxymoron is indeed what Tim plans to call his next book, which he hopes to publish by the end of the year.
Meeting Tim for the first time, one might be struck by what seems an arresting first resemblance to Buffalo Bill Cody. Tim’s flowing silver locks, goatee and tattooed forearms says this man has something of a rebellious side.
But if anyone who can rein in Timothy Gomes, it’s undoubtedly Lidia Gomes, Tim’s wife of 43 years. One of the questions I threw at Tim during our discussion quieted him for a moment and brought out a softness in his eyes.
“Is there an experience in your life that you would like to go back and relive?” I asked.
“Well, Lidia, of course,” Tim replied. “She has made it all worthwhile.”
The fly in the marital ointment was Tim’s prospective father-in-law, the aforementioned Antonio Ferreira who wasn’t thrilled by the upcoming marriage. Something tells me, though, his opinion has likely changed in the intervening years.
Tim met his Lidia on April 16, 1971, and knew immediately she was the one. Her reflection in a nightclub mirror caught his eye, and he’s never looked back. It was at the old Capri restaurant at Cochrane and Monterey roads where Tim proposed.
“I was thinking of, would you consider marrying me?” was how Tim popped the question, and they married in Reno the following weekend, which turned out to be Oct. 16—six months to the day after they met.
When you talk with Tim, you immediately pick up on his keen memory and sense of history. His son, Michael, the Gomes’ only child, was born in July 1976, “on the same day,” Tim will tell you, “that Viking I landed on Mars,” ending a 500 million-mile journey.
Tim himself has had a rather remarkable journey, too—one that took some 60 years to unfold.
Born in Oakland to an unwed teenage mother, he was left at the hospital and put into foster care homes where he was exposed to tuberculosis. He was eventually adopted when he was 9 months old.
When his birth mother abandoned the baby boy at the hospital, she told his biological father that the baby was stillborn. Hence, the title of Tim’s upcoming memoir.
Through a circuitously complicated route, Tim finally met his biological parents in July 2010. His birth father, Elden, who remained childless, had terminal cancer and insisted on a DNA test, which proved that Tim was, indeed, his only son. At this point he asked Tim to call him “Dad.”
Last Christmas Day, shortly before he left this world, Elden’s great-grandson was born. Tim’s son, Michael, and the infant’s mother named the baby Elden, after their baby’s great-grandfather. Three days before his death, the old man held baby Elden—a true end-of-life miracle.
These days, Tim enjoys the retired life, riding through the back roads and hills of South County on his Harley-Davidson. A red, immaculately maintained 1965 Mustang convertible rounds out his collection of cherished rides.
With his heart of gold and repertoire of rare family stories, Tim Gomes is a South County treasure.
Gale Hammond is a writer and freelance photographer who has lived in Morgan Hill since 1983. Reach her at ga***************@ya***.com.
