por Víctor Franco Alonzo
El Dr. Noel Estrada Martínez en la ciudad de Sur San Francisco meses antes de muerte (PHOTO BY HAZEL GUTIÉRREZ)
Nicaragua is mourning. Dr. Noel Ernesto Estrada Martínez passed away in San Francisco, California, on July 4 at the age of 85. Born in Managua, Nicaragua, on Sept. 23, 1925, Dr. Estrada-Martínez studied at the Colegio Bautista de Managua, where he got his high school diploma, and then transferred to the National University of León city, where he got his Doctorate in Jurisprudence.
Dr. Estrada Martínez wanted to specialize in medicine; however, his father urged him to study law and, although this wasn’t his vocation, he specialized on it, until he became one of the most important lawyers in Nicaragua. He exercised his career from 1959 to 1979, when a change of government forced him and his family to exile in the city of San Francisco, California.
Nevertheless, “even though he physically lived in the U.S., his spirit continued to be trapped in a paradise called Nicaragua, which was going to remain forever in his memory, just the way he knew it before his departure”, said his daughter Glenda Gutiérrez in an interview with El Reportero. A loyal friend of his accurately named him man-homeland, a characteristic that is reflected in most part of his heartfelt writings, which in occasions led him to tears.
He was a person who read a lot and thus, he was very cultured, who felt that every book he held in his hands provided him with a new lesson. Moreover, he loved his family and was proud of it. He was born rich for two reasons: firstly, due to a significant inheritance; secondly, due to the most important reason: he never paid attention to material stuff and gave away all the things he owned to his loved ones. He was a humble person; he settled for not too much.
His hobbies were photography, hunting and horse-riding, as his affinity for writing and his works can be considered more of a vocation than a hobby. Through these he rested and connected with his beloved Nature, to which he has been united forever, leaving an inheritance of permanent love everywhere he passed by.
“He was a very good man”, said sadly Ivania Palacios, owner of the Restaurant El Trebol, where Dr. Estrada used to eat Nicaraguan food since approximately three decades.
“A picture of me he took with his camera during the 15th birthday party of his granddaughter Hazel Gutiérrez, and which surprisingly he brought to me as a gift to the office at the newspaper, is a very sweet memory that I will always keep and be very fond of”, said Marvin Ramírez, editor of El Reportero. “Don Noel Estrada was a soul of God, a gentleman full of virtue, love and peace.”
It was that same heart, through which he always delivered happiness and goodness among the people around him that failed at 3 a.m. on U.S. Independence Day. In heaven, where his beloved wife, Mary Estrada, deceased a few years ago, was waiting for him, together with his parents Ernesto Estrada and María Estrada.
He is survived by his siblings Robert J. Padilla and Yolanda Robert; his daughters Glenda Ninoschka Gutierrez, married to Sergio Gutiérrez and Grace Ninnete Alfaro, married to Raúl Alfaro; his son Noel Ernesto Estrada Jr, married to Marina Estrada; just as Linda Griffith, his son’s ex wife and considered a daughter to him; and eight grandchildren, among them Ernesto Ignacio Estrada, Frarinz Guiselle Alfaro-Shkurkin, Ninnete Elizabeth Alfaro, Christina Griffith, Hazel Montserrat Gutiérrez, Alyeska Gutiérrez, Ian Raúl Alfaro and Sheyla Janel; and a great grandson, Dominic Shkurkin.
His remains will be watched on Sunday, July 10 from 3- 9 p.m. and a rosary at 7 p.m. at the funeticsnerary Driscoll’s Valencia Mortuary. Monday, before his burial, at 11 a.m., there will be a mass in lying state in the historic Dolores Basilica, located in Dolores Street with 16th, and then after carry his body for burial at Cyprest Law Cemetery in the city of Colma at 10:30 a.m.
The staff of El Reportero and especially its editor, Marvin Ramírez extend their most sincere condolences to the mourning family and accompanies join them in their grief.
