GILROY
– Gilroy resident Helena Mak-Vogel dreamed of owning her own
business as a little girl. Now, sitting in a lawn chair overlooking
the five-acre estate of produce nurseries she and her husband own,
Mak-Vogel can finally sigh with tired but relieved contentment.
GILROY – Gilroy resident Helena Mak-Vogel dreamed of owning her own business as a little girl. Now, sitting in a lawn chair overlooking the five-acre estate of produce nurseries she and her husband own, Mak-Vogel can finally sigh with tired but relieved contentment.
Born in Hong Kong, on Chinese New Year, 1961, Mak-Vogel lived in Asia for nearly the first half of her life.
“I miss my family in Hong Kong,” she said. “The last time I saw them was four years ago, but after living here for so long I’ve gotten used to the distance and separation.”
She met her first husband while he was doing transfer work for an American oil company based in Singapore. The two married in Texas, returned to Singapore and lived there for two years. But the encouragement of steady job opportunities available in California led them back to the United States.
San Jose quickly became Mak-Vogel’s new home. Even though she and her husband separated and eventually divorced only two years after their relocation, Mak-Vogel vowed to stay in California.
Sheer will and ambition drove her to succeed as she rented a room and worked several minimum wage jobs in the hopes of saving what little money she could for her future. It was during this time that Mak-Vogel met her husband, Michael Vogel, a California native who grew up in San Francisco.
The two married and bought a townhouse and dry-cleaning business in Campbell.
Running the dry-cleaning business proved a rocky challenge. After being robbed and vandalized, their landlord took over the store and resold it to another business. Tentatively unsure of what the future held in store for them, her husband managed to find a job selling chemicals and fertilizers for a Watsonville-based farming company.
One of his clients was a man who owned a medium-sized nursery in Gilroy named George Betsy. As Betsy grew older and began to look to retirement, he asked Vogel if he would be interested in purchasing his nursery and life’s work. The couple thought the proposal over and finally agreed.
“I would rather be working outside, pulling weeds and gardening than sitting in the house working or watching TV,” she said.
Vogel had majored in agriculture while in college at Cal Poly and the field of farming still greatly interested him. Mak-Vogel had always loved to garden and roam around in the freedom of the outdoors. After living for so long in Hong Kong where her family along with the rest of the population were compacted into close living situations, she openly embraced working in the vast countryside.
In 1989, Mak-Vogel’s childhood dream came true when she and her husband first purchased the nursery and then eight months later they also bought the house and surrounding property that were included on the estate. Soon after moving to Gilroy, Mak-Vogel began to think seriously about returning to college to finish her degree. Once again the ambitious nature that burns through Mak-Vogel’s veins pushed her to succeed.
“I was born on Chinese New Year, the year of the ox,” she said. “I guess that is a good thing because I’ve always been a hard worker.”
Almost 10 years later; through countless hours spent working in the nursery, as well as managing motherhood with the birth of her son, Keaton, Vogel graduated from San Jose State with a degree in accounting.
At 43 years old, her past seems like a whirlwind filled with a lifetime of adventures, and yet this tiny woman of barely 5 feet 1 inches tall is brimming with energy.
“In my future, I would like to travel to Morocco, Egypt and Africa,” she said. “My husband Mike lived in Zimbabwe for six years, and he loved it there.”
When asked about what she thinks the future might hold for her, she looks wistfully at the sky and says that her husband would love to move to San Diego, but for now, she is pushing to stay here.
“I just love Gilroy, the community, the people; I could not imagine living anywhere else,” she said.
