Meet Rosaclara Gable! Rosaclara is retired and now volunteers with Good New Clinics assisting with registration.  She has three children, eight grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren that live all across the country.
Rosaclara spent much of her life living all over the world in nine different countries with her late husband Donald. She has lived in Gainesville for the last 37 years and is originally from Barranquilla, Colombia.
One funny story Rosaclara shared is how her father reacted when he found out an American wanted to marry his daughter. Her wanted to make sure Donald was serious about marrying his daughter and requested that her late husband Donald, provide the family with letters of recommendation to prove he was devoted to Rosaclara. Well, Donald granted the request and the rest is history!
We want to thank Rosaclara for sharing more about her life with us and her love of Hall County.
Question: Where did you work before you retired?
Answer: “I worked for a poultry vaccine manufacturer here, it used to be Select Labs, now it’s a German company. I did international exports for them for over 23 years. I got to travel a little bit for the company and it was mostly handling all of their orders because we had a lot of distributors in different parts of the world. We had to ship the vaccine to them and I was the one in charge to make sure everything went okay because it was a very perishable commodity and had to be shipped frozen in liquid nitrogen containers. So, you have a lot of little things to be taken care of before it got to the other end of the world. At first, it was only to Latin America and South America then we were purchased by a French company so that included part of Europe and by the end, it was in Asia.”
Q: How long have you lived or worked in Hall County?
A: “Thirty-seven years, I was born and raised in Colombia, South America and married an American from Wisconsin who I met in Colombia. He was working for an airline there when we first met, then we lived in nine different countries before he retired. We came to Gainesville because he had been living outside the country for 30 years and didn’t want to move back to Wisconsin, because it was too cold. We started in Miami and worked our way up and had friends who lived in Gainesville. Sadly, my husband passed away 21 years ago, but we have three children, eight grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. I have one son in Flowery Branch and two grandchildren, also a grandchild who’s married and lives about an hour from here. But my daughter is in Nevada right now and my other son is in Pensacola, Fla.”
Q: What is one of your favorite things living in Hall County?
A: “The friendly people, because I have found there is always someone that can talk to you and meet you and find out about you. It is a very friendly town and I like it very much.”
Q: What is your favorite restaurant in Hall County, and what do you love there?
A: “My favorite restaurant here is the Atlanta Highway Seafood Market.”
Q: What is your favorite movie?
A: “’It’s a Wonderful Life,’ we watch it so much I’ve learned to love it.”
Q: Where are you volunteering now?
A: “Right now, I’m volunteering with the Good News Clinic, I help with the registration of the new patients because my Spanish helps the Spanish speaking that do not speak English. I also do some interpretation for the nutritionist with her patients. Before that, I used to volunteer at a St. Michael’s Catholic Church and taught English as a second language.”
Q: What advice would you give a crowd of people?
A: “Don’t take things too personally and try to understand people, because you don’t know what they’re going through.”
Q: Where is somewhere you want to travel?
A: “I travel a lot, I just came back from a two and a half weeks from Nevada and California where my granddaughter got married. In a week I’m going to spend Christmas in Washington, D.C. with my daughter and her family.”
Q: What is something on your bucket list?
A: “I think I’ve done most of it.”
Q: What is something interesting about you that most people don’t know about you?
A: “Most people don’t know about how huge my family is. Most of my family is from all over South America, and the United States. My brother and sister are in Colombia and so are my nieces and nephews. I have a niece in Florida, and I have my daughter in Reno and my son in Pensacola. Some family is in Dallas, California, and there’s another one in Memphis. They all came to visit Gainesville for my 80th birthday.”
Q: What’s your secret to looking so young?
A: “I think it’s the genes- because my mother was 95 when she passed away… I also like to stay active.”
Q: What are your hobbies?
A: “I’m in a book club and love to read. I have all kinds of friends of different ages, and viewpoints.”
Q: What three words or phrases that come to mind when you think of the word HOME?
A: “Warmth, friends and family.”
Q: What Colombian town did you grow up in?
A: “Barranquilla– which is on the Caribbean coast.”