❒ Event includes traditional meal for public

By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

In the 1200s in Portugal, Queen Isabel prayed for her people to be saved from a famine.

The next morning, three ships loaded with bread arrived in the harbor. The queen gave her crown as a gift to a young peasant girl, who led the people to church to give thanks for the miracle.

Another story about the queen who became a saint tells how her husband, the king, caught her sneaking bread out of their palace to share with some hungry people. As the king grabbed Isabel’s cloak, the bread miraculously turned into roses, sparing the queen from her husband’s anger.

Remembrance of Queen Isabel’s sainthood and her concern for the hungry will be celebrated Sunday during Benicia’s Portuguese Holy Ghost Parade, the 105th staging of the annual event.

The celebration will start at 10 a.m. when those attending leave the BDES Hall, 140 West J St., to walk to St. Dominic’s Church, 475 East I St., for celebration of Mass, said Ken Gonsalves, parade president.

Back at the hall, those not attending the service will get the first serving of sopas, a stew of marinated meat cooked in a spiced tomato broth and served with bread, in remembrance of the queen’s miracle, Gonsalves said.

During Mass, the event’s Queens will be introduced, and stories of Saint Isabel will be retold. Those attending Mass will start the Holy Ghost Parade from St. Dominic’s back to the BDES Hall at the end of the service, arriving about 1 p.m. for their serving of sopas.

The public’s meal of sopas will be at 2 p.m., the same time an auction begins at BDES Hall. Visitors also will be able to buy linguica, or Portuguese pork sausage, and Portuguese sweet bread.

Dancing, particularly the Portuguese chamarita, will start at 3 p.m., and dinner will be served at 6 p.m. The chamarita is danced in a circle, with a caller directing dancers in a variety of moves similar to the way it’s done in square dancing, Gonsalves said.

To accommodate the event, portions of First Street will be closed to traffic twice Sunday, from 10-10:45 a.m. and again from 12:45-1 p.m., Gonsalves said.

In addition, the 100 block of West J Street will be closed to through traffic from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., though access to adjacent properties will remain available and those who live in the area won’t be required to park outside.

Parts of East H, East I, East Fourth and East Fifth streets also will be closed temporarily while the parade marches to and from St. Dominic’s and the BDES Hall.

There is no charge for the event, Gonsalves said, “although donations are always welcome.”

The event isn’t just for the Portuguese, either, Gonsalves said.

“It’s Benicia,” he said. “It’s a Benicia tradition.”

In fact, he said, the parade grand marshal, Dan Reidinger, is a Benician who has been volunteering at the BDES Hall for 30 to 40 years, though he’s not Portuguese.

For Gonsalves, it’s a family tradition. His father, Norm, is pure Portuguese, and was the parade’s president for 15 years until Ken took over in 2008.

The family also was instrumental in keeping the Benicia tradition alive.

The Holy Ghost Festa is an Azorean tradition going back 700 years. Because it honors St. Isabel, part of the festa’s tradition involves feeding anyone who comes to the BDES door during the event.

The local celebration began May 25, 1907, seven years after a delegation from the Oakland chapters of the Holy Ghost Society — Irmandades do Divino Esirito Santos (IDES) — and the Sociedade Portuguesa Rainha Santa Isabel led two meetings and organized Benicia councils of their organizations.

Eventually the Benicia Holy Ghost Society chose to have its own committee rather than be an IDES lodge. That’s why its acronym is BDES — B stands for Benicia — instead of IDES, Gonsalves said.

That first Holy Ghost Society festa in Benicia took place at UPEC Hall on First Street. Rose Duvall was chosen the first Benicia queen.

Because the event — which served sopas to 2,000 visitors or more each year — was so popular, Benicia’s Portuguese population raised money to build a hall of its own at 140 West J St.

By 1914, the BDES Hall was completed, in time for its first Benicia Holy Ghost Parade.

The event thrived for more than 40 years, until its chief cook, Manuel Ribeiro, who had been organizing the hall association since 1934, decided to retire in 1953. The society was in danger of folding that year, so the Holy Ghost Committee cancelled the festa it had planned for May 31, 1953.

Its decision was reversed by some Benicians determined to keep the tradition going here after they attended Vallejo’s festa.

Benicia members Joe Gonsalves, his son Norm (Ken’s father), Elias Silva and Sebastian Bento met afterward at Hussey’s Bar. After discussing the situation, they decided the Benicia festa must continue.

One week later, they and others, including Joe Gonsalves’s brother Joaquin (Ken’s great-uncle), re-established the Benicia Holy Ghost Committee and set a September date for the local event.

They promoted the Benicia festa by marching in parades in other cities — Fort Bragg, Dixon, Rio Vista, Novato, Sebastopol and Sausalito. They marched twice in Hayward and Petaluma, and four times each in Oakland, San Leandro, San Pablo, Rodeo, Crockett and Mission San Jose.

All those parades paid off, and Benicia’s festa continued without a break.

The local event is full of other family traditions, too. The Bettencourt family gave St. Dominic’s Church the “Our Lady of Fatima” statue in 1954. Members of that family have carried the statue in the parade every year since.

Four generations of Queens marched together in the 1993 Holy Ghost Parade: Maimie Joseph, the 1918 Queen, was accompanied by Eleanor Daniels, the 1945 Queen, Denise Bennett (1965), Megan Kirkpatrick, (1990) and Tiffany Bennett (1993).

In 2004, Sarah Haynes was joined by Marjorie Gonsalves (1948) and Marjorie Gifford (1973) as three generations of living Little Queens — all three descended from the first queen, Rose Duvall.

This year Sarah Moreau is the Main Queen, Sara Haines is Junior Queen and Ella Grace Demers is Little Queen. Portraying St. Isabel is Camerina Castano.

All have ties to the Azores, and the three Queens have direct lineage to the islands, said Christina Moreau, Queen coordinator and mother of Sarah.

Visit beniciaholyghost.org for more information. The event begins at 10 a.m. Sunday at the BDES Hall, 140 West J St. The public is welcome.