Obituary of Juanita Gomez

Juanita was born February 4, 1932 to Claude and Nelly Holt Harrington in Depew, Oklahoma where her rural upbringing would begin shaping and strengthening her life almost immediately. Her family of two brothers - Vinus and Marvin, four sisters - Elsie, Claudine, Maudie, and Myrtle all lived in a small, dirt-floor shack with their parents. Water was drawn from a hand-dug well and they all shared a single outhouse. Claude would suffer a hunting accident losing a leg and then when Juanita was just nine years old, her 32 year old mother would suddenly pass away of illness leaving their sharecropper-father to raise many small children. By the time Juanita was 12, her widowed father would decide to resolve his parental challenges by dividing up and sending all the girls away. Juanita‘s two brothers could stay with their dad to help with the farm but the girls were considered a liability. One sister’s unplanned pregnancy led her to life in a convent. Another was adopted out to a financially well-off family; and another was also adopted out to an aunt. Juanita and sister Elsie would be painfully sent away to orphanage-life in Pryor, Oklahoma. But not before Juanita became driven to prove her worth. Already a tomboy with exemplary skills in athletics, horseback riding, hard work and even fighting, Juanita began her life-long purpose of proving she was as good, and tough, as any boy. The painful family break up would motivate Juanita to challenge herself and succeed at most everything she ever attempted and did not preclude her from giving final care and attention to her cancer-stricken father when he called out to her as a 32 year old nurse. Juanita would go on to graduate from Pryor High School in 1950 and later from the Hillcrest School of Nursing in Tulsa in 1953. There, she would meet her lifelong love and husband Ricardo Gomez. They married in 1952 in Sapulpa, Oklahoma and travels would take them around the world together. Ricardo, a career wildlife biologist would move their family on several assignments around the state and she would accept registered nurse employment wherever the family needed to be. She worked one year in Cherokee, Oklahoma near Enid before they moved to Norman. Ricardo and Juanita would put down roots on a small farm near the rural community of Little Axe just east of Lake Thunderbird where the country-life was enjoyed. Juanita would continue commuting to Norman where she would serve out her career at Norman Municipal Regional Hospital gaining respect as a floor supervisor, head nurse over the ICU and received recognition as Nurse of the Year (at least twice) before retiring in 1990. Known and respected for her straight forwardness, but similarly criticized for lacking diplomacy, Juanita had no use or patience for ‘beating around the bush’. Perhaps that’s why her medical opinions and patient-observations were frequently sought after by the doctors and staff she worked with. That professional respect would always be a great source of pride for her. During this phase of her life, she participated in every activity she could, rarely missing a contest including hospital golf tournaments, city bowling, and softball leagues and all kinds of water sports including hunting, fishing and scuba diving. A penchant for teaching, Juanita tutored untold numbers of her sons friends and relatives in all the above and on occasion, bragged how her young sons were “thrown out of the boat and only allowed back in after they’d learned to (water) ski!” The whole family would become accomplished divers, slalom skiers and competitors. They would eventually downsize their farm and move back to town by 2004. Juanita continued her competitive activities well into her eighties but also enjoyed her plants and the green thumb she was amply blessed with. She seemed to be able to break off a dead stem, place it in moist soil and watch it grow. As her health began to wane in the last year, she gave up bowling and golf and with them left her spark. Practical to a fault, she signed a “do not resuscitate” (DNR) order and asked to go home. Her final sentiments were of love and pride for all of her family. And, through it all, from the most humble of beginnings, in her competition of life, Juanita came out victorious. The service will be live streamed on the Green Hill Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/GreenHillFuneralHomeandCemetery www.greenhillok.com