Oligia S. (Pacheco) Valencia

FALL RIVER – Oligia Sousa Valencia, a loving mother of three children and the matriarch of her extended immigrant family, died peacefully Sunday, July 16 in Providence, R.I. She was 73.

She was the daughter of the late José Raposa Pacheco Jr. and Marcionilia de Sousa Caloura Pacheco.

Born in São Miguel, the Azores, the autonomous islands off the coast of Portugal, she and her large family emigrated to the United States in 1968, when she was 18 years old. After initially settling in Bristol, Rhode Island, she called the same three-bedroom apartment in Fall River her home for roughly 50 years. She had been estranged for decades from her husband, but was forever devoted to and proud of her children.

For decades, she labored as a seamstress in the city’s many textile mills, notably at the former Bristol Knitting Mills and also Precision Sportswear, where she earned a reputation as a fast, efficient worker but also a talented sewing machine operator. For several years, to help support her family, she also worked on weekends at the former Pereira Grain and Supply food and variety store, specifically in the seafood section, where she handled the area’s daily fish and lobster catch.

They are trades and talents she inherited from her parents as the oldest of nine siblings, and which she shared with her brothers and sister and her children.

She also sharpened and honed those skills in her home, where she was quick to hem a pair of pants for a friend, or sew her daughter’s prom dress, where she would clean fresh fish for a brother, a fisherman, or steam a bucket of clams for friends and family to gather at her kitchen table.

She had many memories of such moments in her kitchen, and those were among her most cherished.

The only thing she could never share, as hard as she tried, was her green thumb, having amassed a collection of plants and flowers that would rival even the finest of garden museums, though she would gift a seedling to anyone who asked.

Mrs. Valencia is survived by her three children Rafael Valencia, Melissa Valencia and her partner, Edward Phillips, and Milton Valencia and his wife, Crystal Valencia; and her three grandchildren, Macey Allison Lavoie and her wife, Alaina Lavoie, as well as Emerson Angelou Valencia and Julian Joseph Valencia. She is also survived by three brothers, Humberto Pacheco, Paul Pacheco and his wife Cheryl Pacheco, and Cesar Pacheco and his wife Rita Pacheco, along with several nieces and nephews and their children.

She was predeceased by her brothers Joe, Carlos, Enio and Oscar Pacheco, and a sister Marta Botelho.

Her Funeral Mass will be held, Friday, August 25, at 10:00 A.M., at Holy Name Roman Catholic Church, 709 Hanover St, Fall River, MA.

Interment will be private.

In lieu of flowers, the Valencia family asks that you consider purchasing a plant for your family household, and nurturing it in her memory.

Arrangements are by the Auclair Funeral Home, 690 S. Main St., Fall River, MA, 02721.