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38 November–December 2013
tallahasseeMagazine.com
Elsa Alvarez was born in 1936, and grew up very poor until her teen years and her 20s, when her father’s store had taken off, carrying her family into the upper rungs of high society. In her spare time, Elsa enjoyed being active and spending time outdoors: biking, running, walking, skating and dancing. She also loved children and doted on her nephew. Her love of family was always pronounced, and she was described as kind, candid and energetic — but also very shrewd and calculating. She wanted to work, but her father would hear none of it. When she was 32, Elsa went on a 30-day Pan-Am tour across the United States with her siblings and sat next to the tour guide on the plane. Although they were just friends during and after the tour, Agustin still insists that his wife was enamored with him from the start. This remained the case for a year, as they went to movies and dances together. “After this we travelled again, but we travelled to Europe, and in France we fell in love,” she recalled with exaggerated nostalgia and a laugh. Donna Cay Tharpe, one of the Corbellas’ friends here, noted that “they seem like a well-matched couple, until you get to know them better and then you see how different they are.” They do bicker, like many couples who have been together as long as they have, but even in their quibbling, Agustin and Elsa’s appreciation for one another is clear, says Tharpe, who describes their relationship as “argumentative, but loving.” In 1971, they married and travelled through Europe for a month before returning to Maracaibo and opening a store called Tabac Import. The store imported a variety of goods from Europe, including crystal, leather, pipes and tobacco. It was also Elsa’s first chance to fulfill her desire to work. The store grew to be highly successful in a relatively short time, and in 1972 their son Agustin was born, followed by their daughter Catherine in 1974. In 1979, when their children were 7 and 5 years old, the couple moved to the United States. “It was my dream to live in the United States,” said Elsa, recalling that she had often begged her father to send her to school here. But after hearing many immigrants lamenting how much they missed their old lives, she was hesitant to leave her home country. “I said, ‘I’m never going to leave my country. Never in my life; I want to die (in Venezuela),’” she recalled. “In less than one year we were here.” Although the prospect of moving was scary, ultimately Agustin saw rumblings in Venezuela of the same chaos and upheaval that had consumed Spain years before. To give their children brighter, more secure futures, they decided it was time to leave. The Corbellas left behind their home, their store, their apartment and all that was familiar. They moved to Gainesville, where they set about getting their legal documents in order to become residents — a process that took three years. “We travelled with two bags, two children and money in the pocket,” recalled Agustin Corbella. After a few years of volunteering and taking classes (particularly English courses) as their legal residency processed, the couple began working. For a short time, Agustin made jewelry while Elsa volunteered and started working at a Latin American restaurant called Emilianos. After she had worked in the restaurant for about a year, the couple set about building a new business in their new home — their own restaurant, called Montserrat.