Gladys Esther Tormes González

Early years and schooling Tormes González was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, on 19 September 1933. She is the daughter of Leopoldo Tormes García, who was a member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives for 20 years.

She attended the Román Baldorioty de Castro and Dr. Rafael Pujáls elementary schools in Ponce, and the McKinley middle school also in Ponce. She then attended the Academia Bautista de Barranquitas in Barranquitas, Puerto Rico. She then moved to Ohio where she graduated from Bluffton College. She moved to Salamanca, Spain where she studied at the Universidad de Salamanca and subsequently moved to Seville, Spain where she graduated with a degree of Licenciada en Derecho. It was during this time that she became interested in the history of Ponce, “because people came asking about it”, she later recollected.

In 2000, Tormes González was the only Puerto Rican invited to participate on a workshop on municipal archives held in Madrid, Spain, in 2000 and sponsored by the municipality of Alcobendas. It subsequently moved to Calle Marina across from Plaza Las Delicias in the facility that for many years held the Felipe Garcia department store. Around 2014 it moved again to the Ponce Servicios building, where it remains today (2018).

Accolades In 1985, Tormes González was selected as one of the most prominent women in the city of Ponce. In 2017, social scientist and historian Eli D. Oquendo-Rodriguez dedicated to Gladys Esther Tormes González his 249-page documentary on Barrio Playa titled "A Orillas del Mar Caribe: Boceto Histórico de la Playa de Ponce, desde sus Primeros Habitantes hasta Principios del Siglo XX" (Sketch of Playa de Ponce, from its first inhabitants until the early 20th century).