Maria Goncalves Makes Miley Hall Shine

By: Stephanie Turaj
Posted In: News

A few steamy showers run, toilets flush, and half-awake college girls prep themselves for morning classes. Crisp morning air fills the Miley Hall second floor bathroom and blends in with the smell of sanitizer and soap.

Maria Lourdes Goncalves is busy at work sudsing the bathroom with a green and yellow sponge, and grunts as she scrapes down the walls of the vacant showers. Soap bubbles spill over onto the tile floor, and water splatters over her, leaving wet spots on her grey tee-shirt and grey work corduroys. Although she wears plastic gloves, she does not take off her gold watch, necklace, rings, or earrings- they are her most prized possessions. The jewelry holds precious memories for her; her children gave her one of the rings for mother’s day, and another one is her engagement ring.

Students rush into the bathroom before class and Goncalves makes a point of greeting each one with a cheery smile. “Hi sweetie,” she says in her Portuguese accent.

After making casual talk with the students, she walks over to the cleaning cart in the Miley second floor hallway. She fumbles with putting a few brooms back in the cart. At approximately five-and-a-half feet each, the brooms overwhelm her.

“Oh Dear Lord help us,” she says in slight frustration, but with a smile on her face and a laugh.

She returns to the bathroom to spray down the soapy showers with a hose, and after she finishes, she drops the hose on the floor to take a well-deserved break.

At 9 a.m. on a weekday, Goncalves has already been up for five hours to make the one hour commute to Salve Regina University. She works as a housekeeper Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. in order to provide a living for her family. After work, she returns home to prepare dinner, clean her house, and take care of her small farm.

Goncalves clearly is more than a housekeeper. The students of second floor Miley Hall know her as “Mary Lou”, and some have nicknamed her “Mama Lou”. She is known as “Mae” by her children, which means mother in Portuguese. She is also a wife, a sister to nine siblings, a grandmother, and a loving mother to all.

“I love my kids,” said Goncalves of the Salve students. “They like to talk, and I give a little advice.”

Goncalves said the students come to her with problems, and sometimes ask about her children and grandchildren. She also loves joking around with the students.

Rebecca Bernard, a senior at Salve Regina University and last year’s Resident Assistant on the second floor of Miley Hall, called Goncalves “a saint.”

“We got close really quickly, especially because she would be working at 7:30 in the morning and I would be leaving for my internship,” said Bernard. “Every morning she’d tell me I looked great and told me to work hard. She always made me feel so good before I went to work.”

While Goncalves cares about the students, she admits there are some things she doesn’t like about the job. She said cleaning the bathrooms can be hard sometimes, especially because she has to scrub everything well.

Goncalves also is responsible for cleaning the Miley Hall laundry rooms, the bathrooms on the ground floor, cleaning windows and cleaning the second floor bathrooms and hallways. Despite this, Bernard said Goncalves never complained about the mess and always went to work with a smile on her face.

“[When there’s a] big mess, I just have to do it,” said Goncalves. “There are kids that say ‘I’m sorry for the mess,’ and I say ‘it’s my job.'”

“She was such an uplifting presence in our hallway,” said Bernard. “She always made conversation with the girls and gave us her homemade cookies. Once time she gave me a huge sweet potato that was delicious.”

Goncalves began work as a Salve housekeeper two years ago. Her younger sister, Helena Melo, found her the job. Melo works as a housekeeper at Salve Regina University as well, cleaning both Narragansett and Conley halls.

The two sisters spend a half an hour on their lunch break together at noon. While Melo enjoys working with her sister, she said the two of them are always bickering over something small- and it’s something that has never changed.

“We used to fight a lot,” said Melo. “They were stupid things, like boyfriends. She loves to go out- I don’t.”

Goncalves currently lives her busy life in Westport, Mass. with her husband Manuel. The couple was married in 1966, and knew each other over their entire lives. They sent letters back and forth while he was in the army, and a year after moving to America, she returned to Saint Michael, Azores for her wedding. Her husband worked in construction as a foreman for 26 years, but currently is not working.

Goncalves has three children: a daughter Lorraine, 32, and two sons, Mike, 29, and Joshua, 18. She also has three grandchildren and two step-grandchildren.

“She’s a kind, caring woman, she’s just a great mother,” said her son, Joshua Goncalves. “She’s one of those mothers that does everything for her kids.”

Amidst a full time job and a family, Goncalves still finds time to enjoy Portuguese music and her favorite television shows, including “Deal Or No Deal” and “24.”

Goncalves spends time sewing and crocheting blankets, and she loves to cook and to bake. Sometimes she cooks Portuguese food, and she especially enjoys learning new recipes.

In her cooking repertoire is goat cheese, which she prepares every afternoon after returning home from work. Goncalves owns a small farm, complete with chickens and goats. She has to feed the chickens, clean the coup, pick up the eggs, and feed and give water to the goats.

Joshua Goncalves said his mother is always tired when she comes home from work. He says she’s a perfectionist and sometimes the family has to tell her not to work so hard. He said she is pretty much putting food on the table for the family, and even when she comes home from work, she has to take care of the family.

Hard work is nothing new to Goncalves: she came to this country at age 22 for a better life, and first settled in Hartford, Conn. She spoke no English.

“I had no worries, I was happy to come,” said Goncalves. “[I was] worried to leave my parents, but excited.”

Goncalves worked two jobs: one in a factory, and the other cleaning for an insurance company in Hartford. Not speaking English, it was a challenge for her at first. She said that once, at one of her jobs, a taller man started speaking to her, and she could not understand what he was telling her. Intimidated, she started to cry, and it was only later on she found out from her boss that she was responsible for cleaning the man’s office.

Determined, she learned English by listening and making labels for things. She would make a sign for table, for example, by writing the English word, and the Portuguese word, “Mez.” She learned to speak English in a year, as well as some Spanish and Polish. There were many Spanish-speakers in the area, and her landlord was Polish.

Goncalves grew up on a farm on Saint Michael Island, Azores. She started working on her family’s farm at a young age. The family ate everything from their farm, including pigs, cows, chickens, goats and even rabbits.

Melo said the girls had to start working on the farm at 7 years old, and there was often little time to go to school. Sundays were often the day the girls we allowed to have fun.

She said she is very proud of her children, and has many good memories with them. While they were young, her husband took her children fishing, and the children played sports.

“I remember when summer vacation came, she would change her shift in the factories so she could spend more time with me,” said Joshua Goncalves. “She would take me to beaches.we even travelled to The Cape. It was always to the ocean.”

Goncalves took her children to church every weekend, and made sure they all received their First Communion and their Confirmation. She also taught the children to clean and cook.

“I hope for my kids to be themselves, and to do the best they can, and respect everyone else,” said Goncalves.

Joshua Goncalves said she was always checking up on his grades and asking about school. If his grades were low, she wanted him to get extra help.

“I couldn’t afford to go to school, with ten people in the house,” said Goncalves. “Which is why I would say to every kid ‘go to school.'”

Eventually, she hopes to take a break from her busy life and enjoy her retirement. She wants to fish, spend time with her grandchildren, who are 13 years, 9 years, and 6 months old. Ideally, she’d love to visit her home country of Saint Michael, and maybe go to Hawaii for vacation.

“I have good memories,” said Goncalves. “And I try my best to do my job. All of my job is hard to do, but I do it. God gave me strength to do it.”