Gladys Esther Tormes González
| Gladys Esther Tormes González | |
|---|---|
| Born | 19 September 1933 Ponce, Puerto Rico |
| Nationality | Puerto Rican |
| Occupation | Head archivist and historian |
Gladys Esther Tormes González (born 19 September 1933) (a.k.a. “Maja”) is a historian and head archivist of the Archivo Histórico de Ponce (English: Ponce Historical Archive), in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Serving since 1974, she is the longest-serving archivist in the municipality of Ponce.
Tormes González was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, on 19 September 1933. She is the daughter of Leopoldo Tormes García, who was a member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives for 20 years.
She attended the Román Baldorioty de Castro and Dr. Rafael Pujáls elementary schools in Ponce, and the McKinley middle school also in Ponce. She then attended the Academia Bautista de Barranquitas in Barranquitas, Puerto Rico. She then moved to Ohio where she graduated from Bluffton College. She moved to Salamanca, Spain where she studied at the Universidad de Salamanca and subsequently moved to Seville, Spain where she graduated with a degree of Licenciada en Derecho.
In 1970 she became assistant to Ponce Mayor Juan H. Cintrón working in the Nixon Plan. It was during this time that she became interested in the history of Ponce, “because people came asking about it”, she later recollected.
On 15 April 1974, during the administration of Mayor Luis A. “Wito” Morales, she is named Archivera General del Municipio de Ponce (English: Head Archivist of the Municipality of Ponce). She filled the vacancies left by document administrators Leopoldo Ruiz y Acasio Torres.
In 1975, Tormes González was instrumental in identifying a new headquarters to consolidate all the documents of related to the history of Ponce. Under her guidance, the Archivo Histórico de Ponce was first headquartered on the second level of Teatro La Perla. It was inaugurated on 19 June 1975, with a budget of only $5,000. She was also instrumental in ensuring that the documents about the history of Ponce were not moved to San Juan when a proposal to annex then to the Puerto Rico Historical Archive in San Juan was gathering support. A 1973 ruled that municipalities without their own facilities to archive their documents were to send such documents to the Archivo General de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Archives) in San Juan.
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