August 2024
A Generous, Guiding Spirit
Amelia Valiña Sampedro, April 21,1927 – August 19, 2024
As most pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela know, the modern revival of the pilgrimage came about largely through the efforts of Elias Valiña Sampedro, priest of O Cebreiro from 1959 until his death 30 years later. What is far less well known is the supporting role played in that, and in the restoration and life of O Cebreiro itself, by his sister Amelia, who died last week at the age of 97.
Amelia was two years older than Elias, and in 1959 was attending a cookery and catering school in Gijon. She accompanied him to O Cebreiro on 22 September (the day he took up his new appointment), to create a habitable space for him on the upper floor of the ancient monastery. This was easier said than done, since O Cebreiro had no electricity or running water back then, and the building, like the village, was all but derelict. From then until she qualified, she spent every weekend there, and after that...the rest of her life.
Elias Valiña soon began his campaign to restore O Cebreiro, appealing by letter to every conceivable source of aid. When the rebuilding of the church began in 1962 and Elias went up onto the scaffolding as one more among the workmen, it was Amelia, in a place with no telephone and barely any decent road access, who procured the supplies and firewood to provide meals for everyone, winter and summer, on a stove reputed to date from a previous century. Inspired by her brother, as everyone was, there was soon nothing she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do to help lift O Cebreiro out of its destitution.
Her role became more settled, though no less demanding, with the opening of the Hospederia San Giraldo de Aurillac in 1966. Now that there were rooms available for visitors and pilgrims, she was effectively cooking for, and running, a small hotel. The Hospederia, however, was still the rectory, and the villagers trailed in and out of what they considered ‘their space too’, in need of one thing or another, all day, every day, and Amelia’s personal kindness became legendary. Like ‘Don Elias’, she gave the impression of being everywhere and attending to everything at once, with never an idle moment. While her brother was on his parish rounds, prodding the local authorities to provide O Cebreiro with electricity and sanitation, planting trees and writing his doctoral thesis, Amelia provided the practicalities, stability and good humour that kept his frenetic schedule on course. She found happiness in her marriage to Manuel (Manolo) Gómez in 1970, and in the birth of their son José Manuel in 1972. A few years later, their niece Pilar came to share the workload, and what had become a full and satisfying way of life.
During the 1980s, Elias Valiña was creating the informational and associative network that would bring new life to the moribund Camino de Santiago. Increasing numbers of Camino colleagues, pilgrims and friends were passing through the doors of the Hospederia, which - thanks to Amelia’s cooking, and the warmth of the welcome – was by this time famous from the Pyrenees to Finisterre. Elias’s illness and death in 1989 were terrible trials, but Amelia decided to carry on at the helm of the Hospederia, and the rest of the family agreed. Their determination to keep offering reasonably-priced accommodation to pilgrims and visitors alike was challenged by the financial tyranny inflicted upon them by the man appointed to succeed Don Elias, but they stood their ground valiantly until 2006, when Amelia was finally obliged to retire and the Hospederia ceased to function. The Xunta de Galicia awarded her its Silver Medal for her contribution to culture in 2003.
It’s too early for decisions about how best to honour her, but honoured she will be, as she will be remembered.