The Spaniard, who died at the age of 86, ran the family business until its closure in 2010
Almacenes Guisasola
A little over a decade ago, Almacenes Guisasola closed, one of the most emblematic shops in Oviedo during the last century and the beginning of this, and yesterday the life of the one who ran the business since the sixties, the textile businessman Francisco Martínez from Oviedo, died. -Guisasola, deceased at 86 years old.
Born in 1935, Paco, as he was known, had been linked to the family business since he was 18 years old, created by his grandfather, father and brother to distribute wholesale merchandise in December 1940. «Wooden and cardboard boxes entered through one door of the warehouse and out the other due to the shortage of merchandise. It was a very growing sector ”, recalled Paco Guisosola about those beginnings in an interview with EL COMERCIO. The business prospered and distributed merchandise throughout Asturias, selling footwear, chicory, saffron, Carnival masks or hats. Then “we all started specializing in the 1960s or maybe a little earlier,” he added.
He was five years old when the business on Melquíades Álvarez Street began to operate, whose downtown location the family has for sale. A prosperous business, which had forty workers, albeit with ups and downs, like everyone else. “We had a hard time at the time of the great mining strikes. The merchants gave the merchandise to the miners, they wrote it down and when they collected it they returned it. But in those very hard months, they didn’t get paid. We continue to serve the merchants, but they had to pay us very little by little. So we were pulling, “he acknowledged.
At the age of 38, misfortune crossed his life, with the death of his parents in an accident, and he took over the business. Finally, Almacenes Guisasola closed in 2010, in part due to difficult competition from large stores, as Paco himself blamed then.
The businessman leaves Margarita Campa García a widow, with whom he had three children, Javier, Armando and Ignacio, and six grandchildren. The chapel will be installed today, from eleven in the morning to eight in the afternoon, in the Los Arenales funeral home. Tomorrow, Sunday, a mass will be celebrated for his eternal rest in the Basilica of San Juan el Real and the funeral will be held on Monday, at twelve in the morning, in the same temple, where his ashes will be deposited in the family columbarium.