Neighbors mourn 5-year-old Julio Gonzalez who was the baby of
the family
Gilroy – Many knew him only by sight: the little boy who trailed after his older brother Marcos, 8, skipping and running on his way to Rod Kelley Elementary School.
“What one would do, the other would do,” said Maricela Sandoval, Julio Gonzalez’ aunt. Her voice broke as she described 5-year-old Julio, speaking in Spanish. “Even if his brother cried, he cried.”
His family moved to Gilroy only months earlier from Los Banos, Sandoval said. Few neighbors know them well.
Yet Gonzalez’ death rattled them as if he were their own son, their own grandson, hit by a truck Tuesday as he crossed Welburn Avenue. As news of the tragedy spread, a memorial took shape at the northeast corner of Welburn and Kern avenues. It grew like a living thing, with branches of helium balloons and roots of teddy bears and candles. One letter, rolled into a scroll, read, ‘I didn’t know you, but it breaks my heart knowing you’re gone.
‘Say hello to the big man for me.’
He was the baby of the family, Sandoval said, mischievous and full of laughter. Sometimes he was lazy with his schoolwork; sometimes he was rowdy.
“But he was the youngest,” said Sandoval, “and we spoiled him.”
Julio loved Legos, and toy dinosaurs, and Transformer toys, which turned from one thing into another. He giggled at cartoons, and played video games.
Like any happy child, said Miguel Garcia. His 6-year-old son was in the same first-grade class at Rod Kelley as Julio. He remembers taking a photograph of their class field trip to an apple orchard. Julio was the only child missing, in that photo, and somehow, it still bothers him.
He called him ‘gordito’: little chubby one.
Wednesday, Julio’s mother, Claudia Sandoval, sought refuge at Saint Mary Catholic Parish. Others remained at the family’s home on Welburn Avenue, trying to make sense of their grief.
Cheryl Volz, a Kern Avenue resident, didn’t know Julio. But you wouldn’t know it, as she set an angel figurine gently on the sidewalk, alongside a child’s handwritten card. ‘For Julio – I miss you – Marco,’ it read.
“Every time you pass by here, you’ll be thinking about that child,” she said.
As she spoke, passing drivers glanced at the cluster of stuffed animals, cards and posters. Some paused; others sped past. Across the street, another, smaller memorial lay: a toy truck, with a candle, and a card labeled ‘Julio.’ The truck, a Ford F-150, was the same model as that which hit the little boy.
“Sometimes, we’re on the phone, we’re distracted as we go to work,” Sandoval said. Through her tears, she added, “I just hope everyone is careful.”
