Loved and Lost: Clara Martes Pena opened a food bank and cared for children in Colombia
This story is part of Loved and Lost, a statewide media collaboration working to celebrate the life of every New Jersey resident who died of COVID-19. To learn more and submit a loved one's name to be profiled, visit lovedandlostnj.com.
Before she died in her native Colombia on the last day of May 2021, Clara De Jesus Martes Pena worked as a social worker there, helping the downtrodden, handing out masks and urging people to get vaccinated.
The 52-year-old New Jersey resident raised her three children in Hopelawn in Middlesex County, but she and her husband constantly felt the pull of a homeland where many people needed help. Edgardo and Clara Martes were American citizens, but he also served as mayor of their Colombian hometown, with his wife by his side.
“Their whole life, they had that mentality to help other people,” said their son Carlos Martes. “It’s what drew them together.”
Clara took on social work in Colombia, where she opened a food bank and tended to children there.
“She was very progressive,” said her son. “Their whole life they had that mentality to help people.”
Clara was a massage therapist in the U.S., and she and her husband would often split their time between Colombia and their adopted country. When Edgardo began his four-year term as mayor of Polonuevo in 2020, they moved to that Colombian town of 19,000 people, where they had grown up poor and were high-school sweethearts.
“My parents loved Colombia,” Martes noted. “They planned to retire there and spend half the year in the states and half there. They would spend the cold months in Colombia, and the spring and summer in the states.”
It was Clara’s good nature that initially attracted Edgardo.
“She was a person who would always smile,” Martes explained of the match. ‘’And she was very caring. That’s why my dad was attracted to her.”
And what attracted the couple to the states was a job opportunity for Edgardo as a physical therapist. He was 21; Clara was 20. But it was not easy to assimilate.
“It was a hard transition,” their son acknowledged. “It was a culture shock. Everything here is so different.”
The Penas had a large supportive family in Colombia, but in the states at first, it was just the two of them and their children, Martes and his two sisters.
“Both of my parents were very social,” Martes recalled. “They had left a big family in Colombia. But they did have a very big group of friends here who became like family.”
Martes said in raising their children, the couple sometimes differed in their approaches.
“My mom was usually the good cop and my dad was the bad cop,” Martes recalled. “They took turns in those roles. But they were very reasonable.”
What they always agreed on was helping others. As soon as they were financially able, the couple began the community work in Colombia that would be such a priority in their lives.
“Even when they didn’t have much money, they would give back,” Martes remembered. “He and my mom were very concerned about that.
“She always said, ‘People are more in need than I am.’”
When his mother took ill, Martes was able to travel to Colombia to be with her. Clara and her husband had both overcome COVID, but kidney issues caused her to have a second bout with the virus that required hospitalization.
Clara’s plan had been to come back to the states after her husband’s mayoral term was over. She never made it, and now rests in her home country.
Martes recalled his mother’s abundant personality, how she cared for people and handed out Christmas treats to impoverished Colombian children.
“She was funny,” he said. “She would joke around. People were very trusting with her. They would just open up to her.”
The mass card for Clara Pena has the letters Q.E.P.D. on it. In Spanish, it means rest in peace. The prayer translates to “I am the Resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will never die for good.”
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: COVID NJ: Clara Pena opened food bank, helped kids in Colombia
