Hermilda Gaviria Berrío, the mother of Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, was the daughter of Roberto Gaviria Cobaleda and Inés Berrío. She was born on April 9, 1927, in El Frontino, Antioquia.
Appointed as a teacher in the El Tablazo hamlet, in the municipality of Rionegro, by the then Secretary of Education of Antioquia, Joaquín Vallejo, where the gentleman had a farm. A devout Catholic, especially devoted to the Virgin of Fatima and the child Jesus of Atocha.
She married Abel de Jesús Escobar Echeverri, a hardworking and quiet farmer, on March 4, 1946.
Pablo would be her second son, born on December 2, 1949, at noon. When people wonder why Don Joaquín Vallejo was his baptismal godfather, we must remember that Don Abel was the overseer of his farm.
The school where Pablo and his older brother Roberto studied was very far away, almost two hours, and the journey had to be made on foot and later on a bicycle with a rack. Pablo was very spoiled by his mother.
After April 9, 1948, Mrs. Hermilda was transferred to a hamlet in the municipality of Titiribí. She, a liberal, had problems with the conservatives in that area due to her political affiliation, and they almost lynched her and her family. As if that weren’t enough, her cows in El Tablazo were sacrificed, and they were left with nothing.
In 1961, they arrived in Envigado, settling in the La Paz neighborhood in a one-story house assigned by the state. Abel became the night watchman of the neighborhood. Later, when his children had a way of living, he returned to live on a farm.
Her other children: Luz Marina, Luz María, and Gloria; Roberto (intern at the Salesian Institute), Argemiro (employee of Metalúrgicas Apolo), and Fernando.
When he was already an adult, Pablo Escobar gave his dear mother a house near the Stadium, large and with a large terrace.
On November 1, 1984, Abel de Jesús Escobar, her husband, aged 72, was kidnapped on their farm. He was known as Don Hermilda in tribute to his wife. Abel died in 2001.
Mrs. Hermilda lived in El Poblado and traveled to many countries around the world, trips sponsored by her son, of whom she felt proud until her death. Coincidentally, she was with him on his 42nd birthday, on the morning of the same day he died. On that December 2nd afternoon, she was in a clinic when she learned of the news; she headed to the Los Olivos neighborhood, south of Medellín, where her son had been killed.
Mrs. Hermilda passed away on October 26, 2006 (89 years old) at the Las Vegas clinic, from a cardiorespiratory arrest, and was buried next to her son in the Jardines Montesacro cemetery in the south of Medellín.